Power Steering Maintenance on the Pontiac 6000

The words put a chill in my body.

“I think there’s a small leak in your power steering.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if there was.  Remember, I’m driving a 1991 Pontiac 6000 and am trying to keep it alive until it reaches 240,000 miles.  You know what 240,000 miles is?  That’s the distance from Albany to the moon.

Now, my knowledge of car maintenance and repair is limited.  I can do a few things to my 6 – replacing the windshield wiper fluid, adding some gas cleaner to the tank – but other things require my taking the 6 to a repair shop.

Or, in this case, to my local Valvoline on the corner of Central and Colvin Avenues.  I use this Valvoline for my oil changes (since my car has traveled over 75,000 miles, I use Valvoline MaxLife synthetic motor oil), and the last time I was at Valvoline, the attendant noticed that my power steering fluid seemed low – the sign of a possible problem down the road.

So before I returned to Valvoline, I stopped at the Advance Auto Parts store at Westgate Shopping Center and picked up a bottle of Lucas Oil Leak Stopping Fluid.  If I was going to get my power steering fluid changed by Valvoline, at least let’s pour in a bottle of this leak stopping fluid and see if it solves the problem.

Anyways, the service techs at Valvoline explained that buying the leak stopping fluid is a good thing.  If there are any leaks, this stuff will plug them up.  And if there aren’t any leaks, the stuff will actually help lubricate the power steering pipes and reservoirs, which is also a good thing.   After using a drain-like device to suck out all my old power steering fluids in the 6, the service tech then took the bottle of Lucas Oil leak stopper fluid and poured it into the empty reservoir.  And when I say “pour,” that stuff had the consistency of molasses.  It was like watching cooled glass drip out of a glassmaker’s furnace.

Then a fill-up of red power steering fluid (apparently General Motors cars use red DEXRON power steering fluid, news to me), pay the bill (minus a $5 coupon, gotta save where you can), and I’m on my way.

Now here’s the thing.  If I had let this situation go on my car, and the power steering fluid reservoir got too low, I could have burned out the power steering module in my car in about – oh, approximately ten seconds.  That would not have made me very happy.

But keeping the 6 on the road does make me very happy.