We noticed this issue on a cold, damp morning while ending a drive after getting off the freeway. When turning the steering wheel a strange 'whine' came from the engine compartment. In doing research I found this was due to a faulty power-steering reservoir, where apparently the filter built inside was not providing sufficient circulation, and the issue was exhibited under certain weather conditions.

I ended up purchasing a 'fixed' version of the PS reservoir as well as PS fluid and did the repair myself.

I have been to dealer twice and they failed to repair the problem. I purchased the vehicle and even purchased extended warranty for an extra $1900.00 to cover 100,000 miles. As it turned out, at 105,000 miles, the pump started failing. I contacted the American Honda and they refused to cover the cost of servicing the vehicle. I have written the Better Business Bureau of Southern Los Angeles, Ca. They have been very helpful. I have just received a call from American Honda saying they will now cover the cost of replacing the pump. I will be going to Honda dealer next week. It is very unfortunate that this is how Honda treats its customers. This is the second time I have had a problem with a Honda product. In 1992, I purchased a brand new Honda Accord. After I drove 37,000 miles, the front axle broke and it cost me $ 2000.00 to fix it. I will have to think really hard next time about buying a Honda product.

I got bitten by the Power steering pump last week. I guess my car has whined a while over the past several months, but I guess I thought they all did that. Well, it got cold, and the power steering pump whine sounded more like a chainsaw that a power steering problem.

I took it to the Honda Dealer expecting the worst; they put in the VIN number....said, yep, there is a new pump that should fix you up and we will take care of it. I never mentioned a recall or service bulletin. They did mention the bulletin and said they would take care of it and they paid for a rental car for me for the day. Needless to say; I was pleasantly surprised the took such good care of me. While I am not happy that I had to do this; it went as well as I could have hoped. I hope those having the same problem have the same success as I did on this one.

I purchased this odyssey used with only 7,000 miles on it. During the first winter I notice a metal rubbing type sound when I turned the wheel at slow speeds. The problem was exasperated in cold weather. After the car has been warmed up, the whine or rubbing sound is less consistent. While the vehicle was under warranty I requested the problem be fixed. The dealer said they could not find the problem and the hence the problem was never fixed.

Now, the vehicle is no longer under warranty, but the sound has gotten worse. Reading other gripes, I believe there is certainly a defect with some steering pumps, mine included. I would hope a honorable company like Honda would do something about it.

Add me to the list of sorry consumers who has purchased a Honda Odyssey and driven it off the new car lot with a known faulty component installed in it. That is, known by the company, not the innocent consumer who paid a large amount of money into the coffers of what I now consider as a questionable company.

My vehicle is the 2007 model and my problem first showed up on a cold winter day after driving about a 170 miles. As I slowed down and came to a stop at my destination, I then noticed the loud noise coming through the firewall into the cabin. It sat overnight and no noise was detected until the next day after again driving for about three hours. Unfortunately by the time I reached the Honda dealership, the noise was again non-existent.

After many months of frustration, the vehicle is in today having the pump and reservoir changed. Honda “Goodwill?” is picking up a large portion of the bill but still trying to stick me with some of it. We aren’t done on this issue yet.

Now, we all know that things break and wear out, but it really bothers me that a company would sell to the public a vehicle with a history of a known defect that stretches back to 2005, with TSB’s proving their knowledge of it. I wasn’t aware that this was a widely known problem until I Googled “Honda Power Steering Pump” this last weekend.

After spending several hours looking at the results of the search, one thing became obvious. Honda is gambling on this component failing after warranty expires, the car being sold to another party as a used product, etc, rather than doing the right thing and recalling it. My vehicle fell into what seems to be the common failure range of 38,000 to 42,000 miles when the failure became obvious.

Is it a safety issue? Of course it is. When I think of my wife or daughter driving this thing at highway speed and the possibility of a steering failure, or even getting involved in a slow speed accident because of a failure, it makes my blood boil. Adding to the safety issue and expense, the possibility of it failing while several hundred miles away from the nearest Honda dealership. When I asked the service manager what would happen if this pump failed at high speed he just shrugged his shoulders.

There are a few “Full Disclosure” laws that require that the buyer be informed by the seller of problem possibilities and dangers. An example is if you are selling your house. And I just saw on the news yesterday that cigarette manufacturers are being forced into an even more extreme disclosure of the dangers of their deadly product.

I am proposing that consumers contact your congressional membership and demand that Congress put into effect a consumer protection law that would require at the very minimum, that new car manufacturers and their dealerships disclose a history of known problems or defects in the vehicle models that they are selling to the individual buyer at or prior to the purchase. The disclosure could be based on the TSB’s issued by the company or NHTSA as a starting point or other sources available. Where there might not be enough history on a brand new vehicle such a 2012, maybe the disclosure would include prior year model histories, with clarification if the problem has been resolved for good.

The disclosure would be easily understood, complete, and certainly not fine print. If the companies decided to not issue TSB’s or hide the problems in some fashion then the FTC and both State and Federal Attorney General Offices should step in and prosecute. This would work as long as consumers were informed as to how to aggressively push their complaints so that histories could be developed.

It seems to me that if “Full Disclosure” were in effect you would not have the issue such as this Honda Odyssey repeating year after year the same bloody problem. If people are aware and sales go down, either the product is corrected, removed from the market, or the company fails.

One thing that I have learned from my small amount of research on this issue this weekend is that my future new vehicle purchases will include looking at the current and prior year TSB’s for the vehicle I am interested in, rather than just Consumer Reports type stuff, etc.

My 2 cents, and your thoughts, support, and efforts for pushing this issue are appreciated.

took my 2007 to the dealer for a power steering whining noise. Dealer diagnosed that we needed a new power steering pump and the cost would be $536. What? a Honda with 38k miles needs a power steering pump? Told the dealer there were many complaints and a service bulletin out there for the power steering pump. Took it home unfixed and called America Honda to complain. Waiting for a representative to review my complaint.

Update from Feb 21, 2011: Had the power steering pump changed by Honda. The service department did give some good will, but not all. Ended up paying $185 out of the $536 total bill.

We started to notice a whine in the power steering pump just a short time after delivery but it would come and go. We had several other issues, like a front wheel bearing failure with less than 2,000 miles and scratches on the dash at delivery that we focused on more at the time. We also experienced a light shimmy in the steering wheel between 60-70 MPH. The wheel bearing and shimmy tended to mask the power steering whine and it typically only was noticeable at slow speeds, especially slow turning movements. We complained to the dealer who stated he was unaware of any Odyssey power steering issues but checked for service bulletins. We were told after he buried his head in a computer for several minutes that could not find any outstanding power steering issues or noise related issues coming from the power steering pump. This is the same service manager that informed us that the spongy brakes that would allow is to nearly push the brake pedal through the floor was a recent design change by Honda based on customer complaints of "too aggressive" brakes in the past. This issue turned into a massive 400,000+ Odyssey brake modulator recall I am sure most of you are aware of.

In the past 16-18 months the frequency of the whining has drastically changed. It is typically a daily occurrence and really noisy at slow speeds when making turning movements. In the past month we have had two experiences where not only has the whining gotten louder and more frequent but we have also experienced difficulty steering at slow speeds. I contacted the dealer several days ago and he finally agreed to take another look for the problem. I am scheduled in at 10:00 AM on Wednesday morning 01/05/2011 in Rhinelander, WI. Thanks to the service bulletins 07-005 & 10-076 they may actually take the complaints seriously. I will advise this forum of the results of my visit. Assuming I get the same poor customer service response experienced to date, this will be my last Honda anything!

Update from Jan 7, 2011: Visited Rhinelander Honda on 01/05/2011 in a attempt to resolve power steering whine issue. Young new service manager "Dan" met me shortly after arrival. I indicated the whinig noise wasn't up to its usual standard (continous and loud whine) but it could be heard none the less. He assigned a mechanic to text drive the vehicle immediately andd then the fun began. When the service tech returned from his test drive he proceeded directly to the parts counter and picked up a new power steering pump and reservoir. Dan intercepted him there and took him away from us (my wife and I) to another counter approx. 30 feet away. They spent a fair amount of time conversing and then the service tech disappeared. Dan remained at the other counter and never approached us. We finally went inside and started up a conversation with our salesman Pat. I explained to Pat I thought it was rude to have a discussion about my vehicle out of my hearing range, what were they attempting to hide? After approx. 30 minutes Dan walks into the waiting/show room and directly past us without a comment. Within a few minutes he returns and stops to tell us that they weren't going to change the pump, only the reservoir. He stated they would drain the reservoir and install the new one and fill it with fluid. I asked Dan if they were going to flush the power steering pump at the same time and replace all the fluid and he stated "no". I asked why and Dan stated because the service (one out of the archieves) indicated that only the fluid in the reservoir should be changed. I argued that he was wrong and he basically told me he can read and the service bulletin 07-005 dated June 17, 2008 clearly states that only the fluid in the reservior should be changed and that is all they were going to do. That is when I gave him a copy of service bulletin 07-005 dated June 17, 2008 and under "corrective action" it clearly states flush the power steering system with clean power steering fluid, then replace the power steering reservoir. He pretended he hadn't read that before and stated, "I wonder if the service tech knows about this" ? He leaves us and we watched him approach the tech at our vehicle and after a short discussion the tech appeared not to be draining the power steering pump. After the tech completed the task I went over to him and asked him to describe what he had done. He stated he did not drain the power steering pump, but after installing and filling the new reservoir he ran the engine and turned the steering wheel hoping to move the old fluid out of the pump into the reservoir where he pumped out as much as he could and then refilled it with new fluid again. I suggested this wasn't was the service bulletin stated to do but obviously what Dan instructed him to do. I decided to give this a try with the understanding that any repeat whining would justify a whole to power steering pump. Dan stated they would keep the pump in inventory for 90 days just in case the whining noise came back.

I want thank the others on this site that provided this service bulletin information. Without this information Rhinelander Honda wouldn't have even looked at the vehicle and certainly wouldn't have even attempted a partial flush of the power steering pump.

a car less than 1 year old should never have this kind of problem. I brought it to the dealer 3 times to fix this problem. First they told me the noise was coming from a pebble stuck in the wheel/brake system. Second time, they said they did not hear any whining. Third time, I had the manager drive the car with me and he himself acknowledged that the steering system should not do that. They said they had to lubricate the entire system, I said it's not even a year old, it should not happen. They just said they fixed the problem. A little over a year after they fixed it , the steering started whining again but this time around I did not bother bringing the car for repair because my lease would be ending soon.

This is my second Honda and definitely my last one. I have bad experience with Hondas.

My '07 was making a lot of noise and was close to impossible to steer at slow speeds (parking lots). The dealer changes the fluid and reservoir. It didn't completely fix the problem and they admitted it. I complained about it, discussed all of the internet complaints and the Service Bulletin and they said Honda would pay for everything accept the flush and a $25 fee?. I will take the additional charges up with Honda later.

They are fixing, hope it works. I have read some complaints that state the high pressure line needs replaced. Dealer had not heard of that. The complaint states the hose deteriorates and causes the filter in the reservoir to clog up. We will see. There were some questions about Ridgelines having the same issue, my '06 doesn't. Remember, confirm the charges and request that Honda pay for them BEFORE you have the work done.

This car has had a noisy power steering pump for as long as I can remember. As you can see from my previous post it has been in already for this problem and the dealer said it is "operating as designed" and "checked for service bulletins, none found". The date on that service order was 11/13/08 and the TSB #07-005 that I have right here in front of me came out on 6/17/08. The dealer made a false statement and I have it here on paper. I would love to tell you the name of the dealership but I'm sure it would be editted out. Again I brought the car in on 11/18/09 for the transmission torque converter replacement #09-053 and told them the pump was still noisey and they said "all ok at this time". I bought a Honda because of their reputation for reliability. I am very disappointed in both the quality of this vehicle and the lack of support from the dealer.

Well, to start I knew the 05 and 06 Honda Odyssey's had power steering problems, but when we bought our 07, not much information was out about the power steering pumps. The Dealer said that Honda made some changes to there pumps to stop the problem, but obviously not, or the dealer just wanted to lie about it. We bought it used with 55,000 miles but got one hell of a deal. Well now at 64,000, just out of warranty and guess what. Driving on Christmas vacation, just got into town and notice grinding of the power steering pump at low speed turns.

Called the dealer they said it out of warranty, so we would have to pay to get it looked at, but they did give me some advise to changed the fluid. So, I of coarse change fluid to see if it fixed it. It fixed the whining for about 2 weeks. Next step call the dealership and try to get it replaced at least half cost, (150 bucks for the rebuilt pump alone is kinda pricey), and file a complaint to Honda for making crappy pumps and not doing anything about it. My suggestion to anyone wanting to buy a Odyssey is, We love the van but get a warranty coverage for the power steering pump through the seller.

Update from Mar 13, 2014: I am updating the situation due to a change in recall info. I received the recall notice up to 100000 miles warranty on steering pump and dealer complied and change the pump and fluid for free at 99000 miles. That worked great for a year and a half until winter came and here we have a really whiny pump and can be heard a block away when temperature is below 30 degrees. Call dealer again but now is seams the new pump warranty is only good for 12000 or 12 months. They won't even look at it now without costing me at least $65 diagnostic fee. Now it's going to cost me $300 buck for an new crappy pump I will probably have to change again in another year! NOT to happy with honda's power steering pumps.

This problem is annoying as you can imagine but to make matters worse, the mechanic acts like you are a complete moron for even suggesting something doesn't sound quite right!!!

When push came to shove it was a known factory defect relating to the power steering pump reservoir sucking air....which apparently was a known design flaw. They didn't mention it to me when I had my recent oil change, only told me about it after the complaint!!! Shame on me for thinking that they would volunteer the information.

During the first hundred miles of our cross country Thanksgiving Trip, the Honda Odyssey power steer pump started making a load whining noises that changed pitch with the RPMs of the engine. The power steering was still operated but not a full capacity. We stopped for the night and found this sight with similar problems on the 2004-2006 models. Well it looks like the 2007s are not spared the problem. We dropped the Honda off at Rick Woodson Honda for repairs and we rented a van for the rest of the trip. Picked the van up on the way back home.