V10 Power Steering Pump question...
 

I'm visiting my sister and bro-in-law in England. They're not particularly handy so I'm fixing everything in the house including the 2008 S8 V10. The power steering whines so I asked him to pick up some Pentosin CHF11,11s or 202; whatever he could find. I just read here the reservoir is buried on a V10. Can anyone tell me how to pull this off with limited tools? We're in the boonies and this car won't get back to London for a long while... Thanks in advance from a long time, multi Audi member moved to Porcshe Cayman :)

Mine did the same thing when I purchased it (07, bought it a year ago), it would whine when the car was cold.

The reservoir on a LHD car is tucked under the left headlight, it's not that hard to get to.

As I recall, I took off a little more than I had to, but I removed the left hand side air filter and then I believe air box. You can then see the power steering reservoir forward of it....you might not have to take the air box out completely.

The level was low, I added a small amount of fluid (probably 4-6 ounces?), put everything back together and it has never made another sound.

I remember a lot of people complaining of this when I got my car, I think the factory fill amount was just a little low.

Followup
 

A followup on the PS fluid top-up on a V10 car:
The reservoir is on the left side of the car (this was a RH drive UK car) under the airbox. You can barely see it but you can see the light blue lid on the reservoir to confirm it’s actually there. I had to remove the cover to the air cleaner but not the lower airbox itself. You need a pair of channel locks for the spring clamp on the plastic air intake tube and you need a long small Phillips screwdriver for the screws on the air cleaner box. When I say long, I mean a 12-16” long Phillips screwdriver to get one troublesome screw on that airbox. You cannot do the job without that long screwdriver. I used a small funnel to get the fluid into the open reservoir and it took only an ounce or two. Car fixed- noise gone. I had this same problem with my Porsche Cayman where only one ounce stopped a whining PS pump. Hope this helps, C.

I am curious about the noise you heard. I picked up a 2008 S8 back in march. i have been away from the car for a few weeks and came back to it and noticed a steering associated noise. sitting still or moving, when you turn the wheel you get a very slight noise, that i hadn't noticed before. if you had the radio up or had loud road noise you wouldn't notice this. i would describe it as being similar to the noise you might hear tuning in a short wave radio. it changes frequency with the speed at which you are moving the steering wheel (faster = higher).

was the noise anything like this? i am away from the car again, so i can't check the fluid level, but trying to get some info for when i next have access to the car.

It ranged from a whine to a deeper growl and it's directly related to steering wheel movement. It was quite loud and my bro-in-law was starting to get embarrased driving around in such a nice car making such a nasty noise. That's why I was pretty sure it was the ps fluid level. If yours is faint, then you probably have time and it will get louder if you loose more fluid. With both my Cayman and this S8, the topup required very little fluid. Remember, you can't check it without removing the top of the air cleaner box. When I looked into the resevoir, I could not see fluid. All I could see was the screen inside the resevoir. C.

Whatever you do, don't remove the base of the air box!!! What a pain in the ASS is was to get that thing back in the right position.

+1
 

To do it you basically need to loosen the upper forward part of the plastic fender liner to reach in and get at the air pump hose (with the impossible to attach the integral plastic squeeze clamp) buried under the bottom of that driver's side box. Very convoluted. Ask me how I know...

Later edit--see post link for all the details here: https://www.audiworld.com/forums/sho...php?p=24448192

Cross reference to my later post on P/S fluid check
 

See here, including pictures: https://www.audiworld.com/forums/sho...2#post24448222

Did you ever figure this out. My current S8 does the same thing as did the prior S8 I had but can't remember what the dealer did to fix it. The noise on my is slightly worse once warmed up.

Kris

No I haven't as of yet. I just put the car back on the road a week ago, and haven't had the time to look at the fluid level., and I won't have a chance to do this for at least another 2 weeks. I have my doubts about it being the power steering, and it certainly isn't a suspension related noise. I don't know how the electronics are put together in the column, is there a slip ring? My thoughts are the noise is coming from something in the colmn closer to the driver than not.

On top of this I am not having good luck with an Indy in the area, the most promising one refused to install my supplied TPMS sensors, and would only install OEM at Audi prices. So I am not sure I am going to go to this guy for further troubleshooting.....