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Civic Power steering warning light
mookaloid - 28/2/12 at 11:56 PM

Hi Folks,

My brother has a new shape Honda Civic and he says that the power steering warning light stays on sometimes when starting from cold. if he turns off and restarts it usually goes away again

I assume that it is electric power steering......

He has taken it back to where he bought it (not a franchised dealer) and they can find nothing wrong - why doesn't that surprise me?

Any thoughts people? is this a known fault or has he bought a pup?

Cheers

Mark

Bare - 29/2/12 at 03:15 AM

Erm.. Take it to a real Dealer ?? Clearly "Alf's" garage doesn't want anything to do with it.

dray13dad - 29/2/12 at 04:31 AM

when light is on next time from first start up check alternator charge rate.

britishtrident - 29/2/12 at 06:59 AM

quote:
Originally posted by dray13dad
when light is on next time from first start up check alternator charge rate.


+1 it might be something as simple as a slack or worn alternator drive belt.
I would also load voltage drop test on the battery or a starting voltage check..

NigeEss - 29/2/12 at 07:38 AM

+2, I was recently involved with a low use Vauxhall Corsa with similar issues. Light would
Come on an steering went heavy. Turned out to be low battery.

mookaloid - 29/2/12 at 05:28 PM

Thanks chaps

britishtrident - 1/3/12 at 07:42 AM

After thinking about this I am now tending more towards it might be an early warning the battery is goosed, probably a dead cell. It may not give any trouble until the first really bad weather next winter. A new good quality battery for diesel could be close to £100 so if he can get it diagnosed properly (high load voltage drop test) and replaced for free it might save a non-start and the cost of a battery later on.

A volts drop test measure the battery terminal voltage under a simulated cold start, ie the tester consists of a volt meter and a resistor that takes 80 to 200 amps from the battery. Good diesel battery should show about 11v under load, below 9v indicates something wrong with battery, 6v indicates a definite bad cell.

You can to an extent simulate this test by measuring by checking the voltage across the battery during a cold start.

However I can recommend anybody having similar problems to buy load voltage tester such as a Silverline 282625 a seriously useful bit of kit and Argos are selling them for £12.99


link to item in Argos online shop.



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[Edited on 1/3/12 by britishtrident]