I have a 2003 Santa Fe and after driving it for 15 mintues or more I notice that when I go to turn the steering wheel it starts to bind and is not as smooth as it normally is. Also from a dead stop when I start to accelerate I can hear a winding noise coming from the power steering pump. Not sure what the problem is.
Quick history: I just had a new engine put in at the beginning of the year and the mechanic put regular power steering fluid. From the point on the steering did the exact same thing it is doing now. I did some research and found that the fluid was wrong so I flushed out the system and put in PS-4 fluid from th dealer. After that is ran perfectly for the last few months until recently (about 2 weeks now) it started doing it all over again. Not sure if the system needs to be flushed again or the pump is shot or both. Any help is appreciated!

 

Well, flushing the system is probably the easiest thing to try first. But the pump may be bad. The belt that runs the pump may be slipping. That could be because the belt is bad, the tensioner is weak or the pump is bad.

 

Do you have a newer p/S reservoir?
The reservoir has a fine mesh screen inside. If that screen is clogged, it could starve the pump from fluid and cause the symptoms you described.

 

The P/S reeservoir is original but I did think about that so I poked some holes into the screen to see if that was the problem but it is still doing it.