no flames please, power steering question

[Andrew Duane USG]

> At 11:58 AM 1/17/01 -0800, Carl Jarrett wrote:
> >I have no idea how this all works but anyhow! My old car, a MR2 turbo,
> >had manual steering and was available with power assist. I LOVED the
> >steering feel of having no power steering. Can power steering or assist
> >be disabled on most cars? Or will that make it much too hard to steer?
> >Just wonder how it all works. Thanks for subsiding my curiosity!

I don't know if you were asking in general, about the philosophy
of disabling PS systems, or whether you had a particular car in mind.

But I wanted to chip something important in here.
For those of you with later model Audis (probably '95-ish and
later), you have the Servotronic steering assist in your cars.
It was labelled "speed-sensitive steering" sometimes, other times
it was called Servotronic by name.

Either way, it is the devil's work! Luckily, it can be turned
off fairly easily for most cars.

My '95 A6QW had it, it lasted just shy of 24 hours. On most
cars, you can simply unplug the relay in the main relay box.
It will be clearly labelled SERVOTRONIC, I think the number on
the top is 357. Tall, black, single-wide footprint.

When you disconnect the Servotronic, the car reverts to the
"normal" power steering found in older Audis, and our bretheren
on the other side of the pond where they don't believe in having
to spin a steering wheel with your pinkie in a parking lot!
It is a delightful amount of assist, just right to help you
drive the car the way it was intended to be driven.

Last night, in preparation to sell my car, I plugged the Servotronic
back in after years of disuse. NOW I REMEMBER! It was god-awful,
almost impossible to drive, no road feel at all, the wheel moved
with the tiniest flinch of my hand. 20 minutes later, the relay
was back on my workbench. If the new owner wants it, he can have it.
I will NEVER use Servotronic again.


Note that not all cars can be turned off this way. The S4/S6 I think
needs to have some connector removed on the steering rack (?) and
the A4 seems to hide the relay elsewhere.

-- 

Andrew L. Duane (JOT-7)			duane at zk3.dec.com
Compaq Computer Corporation		(603)-884-1294
110 Spit Brook Road
M/S ZKO3-3/U14
Nashua, NH    03062-2698

Only my cat shares my opinions, and she's too psychotic to express it