I hadn't noticed this until tonight, but I had noticed that the car had been feeling different while driving recently. I put it down to my shocks which are due for replacement, but tonight I found something else.....

When sat stationary tonight, I noticed that if I tried to turn the wheel beyond a quarter lock, I couldn't. The belt started squealing and the wheel was trying to jerk back slightly.

This obviously worried the hell out of me. The car will let me steer once moving beyond a crawl, but now knowing the steering has an issue has scared me a little. Let's face it, none of us pootle about in these cars!

Does anybody have any suggestions? I looked at the power steering fluid reservoir and it looked to have an adequate amount of fluid in it. One question though, are the cold and warm levels written on the reservoir relating to the engine temp, or relating to the general outdoor air temperature, i.e. cold for winter level and warm for summer level?

EDIT: Would recently having had the aircon and alt belts replaced bear any relation to this problem appearing shortly after?

Please help!

 

powers steering belt needs tightening

 

How do I do that? I did hope that that's all it needs.

 

Looking at the engine theres a black cover over the front of the alternator/ aux drive belts. If you unbolt that and move it to one side you will see a pinch bolt on the lh side of the alternator, Loosen that a couple of threads and wind the big bolt on the top down a few threads then tighten up the pinch bolt, Refit the cover and job done

 

That's great, cheers!

 

Well I am gutted.

I found out tonight that the tensioner bolt and the pinch bolt had both been left untightened. So I tightened them up and got the PAS belt quite taught with just a tiny bit of movement if I press on it. Steering is fixed!

Great, you might think....

Well it was... but then I got paranoid that the aircon belt was too loose, tried to tighten that and have now snapped the bit that the tensioner bolt screws into. I'm pretty frustrated/upset to be honest.

Can anyone tell me how I go about fixing it, and whether it's worth going to Subaru for the part or getting one from a breaker?

Pics:

 

Go to a breakers mate and ask them for the complete ac tensioner, you needed to slacken the nut in the middle before winding it down to tighten it otherwise it just breaks the nylon insert like what's happened to yours.

 

Thanks mate. Do you mean the nut in the middle of the three, or the nut in the middle of the pulley at the bottom?

 

Thanks mate!

 

nut in the middle of the pulley mate