I have a 1.9sdi 2001 fabia and the power steering has been none exixtent apart from a couple of times when it 'came to life'. In the main it hasn't worked. I took the steering pump completely apart and it was like new inside, was expecting to see aburnt out motor or something. The steering angle sensor is a metal one so kind of ruled that out too. I booked it in for a diagnostic scan later today and was preparing myself for a big bill, have been quoted £93+ vat for sensor and £189+ vat for pump (volks world, preston). Before going to diagnostics i decided to remove sensor and have a look, on removing it, dirty water started to trickle out and on removing it, it was covered in brown gunge (water mixed with rack grease) Alarm bells ringing now, could this be causing spurious signals to pump and shutting it down? I thoroughly cleaned the sensor and used compressed air in the hole it sits in to blast all the gunge out. Put it back together and bingo power steering working every time. If you are having problems with yours, check this first, will be interesting to see if any others are cured this way. Takes about 30 mins to do and of course FOC!!!!!!

Worried how the gunk gets in there in the first place though. They are sealed units, or should be. Have had similar gunk come out of mine for some reason. :(

could be moisture building up from constant heating and cooling as it is very close to exhaust downpipe. My dash light is still on but the steering is fine, just need to clear the snag. I would reccomend everyone who has PAS problems to check this first

The other thing I am going to check with mine is how good the earthing is, and when I was on track the only time the PAS decided to flake out was when I clipped a kerb a little too high.... Seemed too coincidental that a bump in the road would knock out the PAS. Suggested a voltage issue somewhere....