So was showing a few friends the kleemann upgrades and went for a spin. I did a small donut and soon as I finished with it, the steering was hard but still operable. I limped it back home and took a look underneath the hood.

All the belts look fine and have enough tension on them. There's no fluid leaking anywhere and the power steering fluid is at normal level.

I'm not throwing any ESP codes and it steers fine when im up to speed...

My tech buddy thinks it might have been when the ecu was taken out and some stuff could have not been plugged in all the way...and jiggled out when I did the donut.

Any suggestions? I'm taking it to the shop tomororw

Don't know if this'll help, but one of my friends had a w203 (non-amg mind you), and killed his power steering as well. He went dynomode and drove it hard, turns and all.

Well its not dead, because I can hear it groaning when im not moving and trying to turn...when the motor is cold and i start it up it works just fine for a minute and then gets really stiff...

I might try to bleed it a little and/or disconnect the battery to see if its one of the sensors going bad...grr...

Does the reservoir fluid foam up when the pump is running? You may have got air in the line somehow... Once air is in the pump you have to lift up the front complete, and turn steering wheel lock to lock manually around thirty times.

I cant think of any sensors that could cause the power steering to go out sounds like the rack or p/s pump has failed.

i have not seen any foam nor any leaks! But I'll try to bleed it later tonight after i pick up the girl from school. So lift the front end up and lock to lock about 30 times?

dumb question but take the cap off when bleeding it right?

Make sure to use the proper ps fluid its synthetic comes in a blue can

q-1-32-0001

Good luck

For whatever reason I have a feeling that the reservoir was low on fluid, and then you did some donuts. That introduced air directly into the pump. If you can hear the pump making noise it's most certainly low on fluid, or has air in it. I would remove the cap, and have someone watch/listen for air bubbles as you turn the wheel.

Not always so simple though. My power steering pump died from shot bearings on the pulley shaft. The fact that the damaged area was allowing air into the pump... I still had decent turning ability, but the fluid foamed in the reservoir, and I had constant power steering whine.

It groans/makes a lot of noise when i try turning it at a stop and doesn't let me move the tire much...

but that theory does make sense, that air could get into it while it was sliding around (i only did one though! trying to make my rear tires last longer than 6 months lol).

I'll definitely try to bleed it tomorrow morning when I get off of work...night shift sucks.

I had better luck working on my car while I had a night shift job. Now I find myself stuck outside in the freezing cold past midnight working on whatever, because I have no time during the day... Let us know what happens!

I spent $1600 for repair because when I did this on wet pavement because our cars oversteer the P/S pump went bad and it was shaving metal bits down the lines into the rack and pinion. Pain in the a$$ to steer at times but sometimes it wasnt so bad. Have a shop check your fluid for metal shavings because that $1600 wasnt from the dealer, the dealer wanted 1600 just for a refurbished rack and pinion. GL and I hope its just the fluid.

Yeah night shift at the hospital let's me work on the car and take care of errands I usually couldn't do during the day...

Anyways I lifted the front end up with a 1 1/2 jack and went lock to lock with the car running. The gf didn't noticea any bubbles or foam...and it was still heavy with the wheels off the ground. What I noticed though was that when I give it some gas in park, the steering eases up a bit when I blip the throttle a little. So I think its the sensor near the steering rack that controls the pressure for the variable steering input or what not? Anyways I'm gonna take it to the shop tomorrow

The procedure is supposed to be done with the vehicle off. Hence the word "manually"...

replace your power steering pump and call it a day

Why not jst remove entire ps system to save some weight? Jk of course...
Sorry to hear that man.. Hope its a small issue...

I think imma change ps fluid sometime soon jst in case...

DOH! I'll try again this morning...i'm also going to disc. the battery for 5 minutes to reset the sensors...crossing fingers its not a 1600 dollar job

I think you were spot on about it being a little low on fluid and introducing air into the system...

I put more fluid in the other day and it helped a tiny bit but was still extremely heavy.

I took the cap off and went lock to until my arms got sore and noticed that it had bubbled up and even spilled some out...

How many times do I keep going lock to lock? I'm about about maybe 50 times and theres still bubbling...

Its toast.

It was barely putting out any pressure when they measured it.

450 for the pump, 1.5 hour for diagnostics (mother-effers) and 1.5 hours for install.

Wonder why mine went out so soon? bigger/heavier rims (when I had 19's on) maybe? Or just faulty unit?

Sorry to hear it was the pump, and that you took it to a Mercedes dealership for service... How many miles does your C55 have? My C32 power steering pump went out at around 91k miles. Pump cost $650 through dealer, brand new, and I did the job myself. It wasn't easy, but well worth the money saved.

i have less than 45k on mine...i bought it with 26.4k on it last year...yeah i know, i put a lot of miles on it...more fun to drive than my jeep for sure.

The pump was 450 through the dealer, but I got raped in labor.

I don't think the design of our power steering systems is very tolerant to donuts. This has to be the fourth or fifth time I've heard of the pump going out after doing a donut or two... I didn't even get to enjoy that. My pump just went randomly...

Drain and flush your P/S system and also replace your pump since it isnt creating enough pressure and hope the rack and pinion wasnt affected by any sort of metal shavings like mine was. Act now before your wallet reacts later on for the worse. Once again GL.

The fluid was drained and flushed as well when I had my new pump put in. Took a pretty big unexpected hit for it...so I'm going to have to wait a month or two to get my rear diffuser and x-pipe...sigh.