I searched this out but all I came up with pointed to the powersteering computer, and I have tried two other ones as well as opened all of them up to find no burned out resistors/cracks in the circuit board.

vehicle is an s4 TII, 115,000

Heres the deal, I was doing some burnouts as a end of season kick before I put it away and the speedo cable came undone during the smoke show....so I took the cable off. I did one last drive with the car the other day and after going about 2 minutes down the road a buzzer (from the p/steer computer) came on the a power steering cut out. However I could turn the key off while coasting down the road...turn it back on and bump start the car and bam, no buzzer, and powersteering. But then 2 minutes later it cuts back out. I tried swapping the computer several times with some from my parts cars and have the exact same result. I also tried swapping control valves from another pump and I have the exact same result. What I am wondering is will having no speedo reading cause this problem? because the car is in MINT shape and I can't see a catastrophic failure occuring so soon after something like losing the speedo without the two problems being somehow related.

Any hoo, its no huge deal because the car is off the road for the winter and a turbo and fuel upgrade so I've got a good little while to solve this problem....if all else fails I guess its manual rack time.

Thanks in advance for any help guys!

 

The S4's have vehicle-speed sensing power steering, (not engine-speed sensing) so I'd imagine that the computer is getting no vehicle speed data if the speedometer is disconnected. I'm sure Icemark will weigh in on this one...

 

yep, needs a speed signal, won't work correctly without it.

Hook up the speedo cable. The speed signal is provided by the speedometer.

 

thanks Icemark
I figured it had to be something related to the speedo....just too coincidental you know?

 

my car has the same exact issue works for awhile then stops working and beeps, but i have the speedo works. My car was converted from auto to manual transmission could that have something to do with it?