wtf ????

[ianst28]

OK so I'm parking the old girl up last night and the steering goes all notchey and stiff
oh f*&k i think that's gonna be a power steering pump I'll be needing then (£147&V.A.T. from the local factors owwwwwiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee) so I turn the wheel lock to lock just to see if it happens again which it doesn't
i turn the car off and go in and promptly forget about it when attacked by the latest drama in the family
this morning i get in and set off to work and I'm on the motorway and i can hear this faint squealing noise kinda like a slipping drive belt but constant
ohhh F*&K i think and pull onto the hard shoulder to have a quick butchers i cant see anything wrong till i notice that the drive belt has ridden over the p/s pulley and is sitting 1 rib off so I weigh up my options and drive to work
before I leave to come home I persuade the belt to run on the pulley the proper way not just 3/4 and it promptly jumps back over
sod it I think I'll get it home then I'll worry about it tomorrow when I'm off
on the way home I stop to get fuel as I pull in the steering does the same thing as last night and then goes back to normal the belt is running the right way and the faint squeal has gone

since I got fuel all has been great no noise no notchey steering nothing

so wtf is going on is it a case of another self repairing French car or should i be looking at something else

btw she's a 99 d8 19td

[steve_earwig]

Hopefully it's just the belt slipping 'cos it's knackered but maybe the pump's siezing, putting a lot of weight on the belt and that's why it's complaining and jumping? How's the fluid level? Maybe you should change the belt and have a look at everything, see if it's all running true and that everything's free to turn.

[mjb]

I'd guess that either the belt's just knackered, or something else (alternator, pas pump, a/c compressor, runner, tensioner) has caused it to jump ship. I'd check everything out before fitting a new belt