power steering leak!

I would think it depends on what type of vehicle and where the leak might possibly be. Need more info. in order to give you some kind of answer.

If you do repairs yourself and have a car lift, yes you can do that. It is tricky but doable.

I had a leak where the alum. return line fastens to the steering rack. Was easily accessible after taking left wheel well liner out. Was a PIA to find but replacing the line wasn't too bad.

I had a leak, assumed it was the pressure line as oil all over the place underneath so hard to tell source, what I learned was:
1. contrary to aftermarket parts supply directory that showed only one part for the V8, there are two, mine being of course the other one, so buy the part from a dealer!
2. Can change yourself if handy, actually small hands a benefit..lol... Not much room to tighten the nut on the bottom of the pump..
3. Actual problem wasn't that at all, the alum. line to the cooler rad. had a pinhole (and I mean pinhole) corrosion pit in it just where the rubber line attaches and where the open cell foam bit on the air dam nicely traps moisture salt etc as the alum. line passes under the rad! I cut the alum bit a bit shorter past the pinhole part, and put a longer piece of rubber line and all ok.
Jack

I just fixed the same aluminum tubing pinhole issue on my V6 - sounds like a similar set up. If so, open the hood and look all the way down to the splash shield that is attached to the bumper. PS oil tends to pool there and you may not even realize you have a leak until you have lost a lot of oil. Easy to access, you can either slip the hose over the hole or replace the entire tubing section with hose. It connects to another piece of hose further up toward the oil cooler.

Don't understand why the replacement parts are better than original equipment. The aluminum ps return line I got at the dealer has a plastic coating on it. Why didn't the original? Suspension parts and u-joints have grease fittings. Why don't originals? Looks like they build guaranteed work for service depts. into the car!!

I just had this same repair done to my 2008 SRX...same issue...my mechanic said "here, look at this...it is hard to see but that's either corrosion or tiny pin holes."...he looked at me like he thought I'd think he was telling a story and I said I had read it here in this thread that others also had this issue...the new pipe for mine from Cadillac also had the plastic coating (but not on the connector part...appeared to be bare aluminum) but then so did my original...

Bearbait1973, I would imagine somewhere between your 2004 model and my 2008 model, a running change was made to this part...perhaps the other parts too...

Bill

Years ago some of the lines running under the car had a protective coating. Also they ran the lines thru the frame rail which also helped protect them. When repairing the ps line I was concerned about all the corrosion of the lines. I think this will not be the last line to repair. My neighbor had a 92 Seville and a 93 Eld. Of which I replaced the brake lines on both . What a PIA.

Not to hard
My lines were leaking where they meet the rack
I tried replacing the o rings with non gm orings to no avail
I evntually found the part number for the correct gm orings
I then searched on ebay for the part number and located oem for$10

I also tried many different o rings with no success. If there is corrosion at end of line where the o ring is located its probably a pin hole leak in line. Hard to find and only remedy is to change line.