Joining the broken PAS club

[Defcon5]

Nice to feel like a proper MINI owner!

Parked the car up this afternoon, all fine - started it back up ten mins later, no power steering!

There were no issues with it previously - no noises, wasnt hard to turn the wheel or anything.

A mate brought round his fault reader and was unable to connect to the PAS module (could connect to everything else fine, engine, ABS etc). Is this more likely to be a blown fues or broken connection than the famous pump failure?

Thanks

Tom

[nickfrog]

Sorry to hear that !

Have you checked that your cooling fan works on low speed, ie when you simply turn the AC on ?

If it doesn't, then the resistor is broken which also leads to the PS pump fan not to work and is the root cause.

You'll need the resistor changed or fixed when the steering is looked at otherwise it will happen again.

[Defcon5]

Ahh I see. Where is the resistor?

The cooling fan should come on whenever the AC is switched on, regardles of the temp of the engine/ambient air

[nickfrog]

On my R56, the resistor is part of the fan assembly on one of the corners, it's green with a black plastic base.
Yes the fan should come on at low speed when AC on and that will also mean the PS fan is on, they work (or don't work) together.

[Defcon5]

Will have a check

[Defcon5]

Do you mean the radiator fan assembly or the PAS fan assembly?

[nickfrog]

I do mean the radiator fan assembly. If you open the bonnet, the resistor is right behind the rad obviously and attached to the right top corner of the fan housing/assembly. On a R56 it's just below the coolant expansion bottle but you can still spot it from above and from some angles, torch light will help.

HTH