Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting power steering probs - black fluid?

Searching and don't see anything quite like this.

I have a '95 Contour V6 GL. Sometimes when turning the wheel the battery light flickers, engine stalls and wheel gets hard to turn. This doesn't happen every time. Dealer topped fluid and replaced alternator and prob still happens. Now they want to replace the belt.

Not sure if the PS pump is bogging the engine or the alternator is doing it or what.

One thing that I noticed, even after the dealer topped/replaced the PS fluid, the PS fluid is very black. I though it was usually clear or red. Can you verify? What to check next? Of course, chilton and haynes aren't much help. Thinking of draining the resivor with snot sucker but wanted to ask you all about the black fluid first. Thanks for the help.

There is a pressure switch on the line out of the pump. It kicks up the idle to prevent stalling while parking, and is probably bad.

Flush the steering fluid till it's back red.

it turns black very quickly on all contours I dealt with ('96,'97,'98).

'95 uses F-type ATX fluid iirc. it's not easy to flush PS fluid as such, but you can syphon it out and top off. after several times it will be good.

fwiw, my '96 used to get it back to black within a year. I suspect '98 does the same but I didn't check for some time.