Got this issue with the power-steering on my 16V. It has been working part time. In periods it works fine, sometimes for a month, then it doesn't work for while and went dead. I noticed if I started in high gear and let go of the clutch rather brutal creating a shake in the engine it started working again. But that didn't work more than a week. Now I noticed that if the wheels was turned full to the left and the power came back once again. Did this for an other week. Now that doesnt work either!

So I give the car to the workshop to fix this, since I pretty sure its a loose contact somewhere, but I figured they could help me out. They tell me it's the hydralic that's toasted and they will fix it for 1000 Euro. I say sod off, it's a loose contact since it works if you shake the engine. But the repair-guy wasn't available when I wanted to point out this. The chick in the cashier was clueless of course. Do you guys think this is hydralic? I thought mechanic failures where here to stay, but my power steering worked perfect for hours after weeks of trouble. As long as I got it working, it continued!

Any ideas? Do I have to disassemble the whole bumper to see the connections or what?

The battery connection at the battery looks fine!

Had same fault on mine, It was the rack that had failed, internal seals leaking

Give it a month or so and it will fail all together, and fabias without power steering are impossible to drive . If it was the electric pump, it would wut up the warning lamp on the dash

Have you changed the steering angle sensor yet? This kind of intermittent working is synonymous with a failing PAS angle sensor

Tnx for the info guys. The symbol on the dash lights up everytime this happens. I forgot to mention that.

Does this change the prognosis?

Think this is still fairly rare but more common in the earlier models, my steering pump failed at 7 1/2 years old and 59000 miles, was £700 fitted at the Stealers, doh!