2001 Oldsmobile Alero Turning sterring wheel

Hello and thanks for donating


You will want to check the drive belt under the hood. It seems as though your drive belt may have broken. If the belt is good and tight then check the power steering and brake fluids.

if it is the drive belt, is that dangerous to drive? Asking cause like I said with work I can not get the car looked at for a few days.

The steering will be very hard if belt is broken. Since the brake light came on though I would be leaning more towards low fluid level which you will want to check quickly. If you run the steering and brake system without fluid it will cause damage to the systems components making a simple fix a much more pricey and complicated one.

thank you so much for your help... I have run into some other trouble now..had the car looked at and found out that there are 17 codes showing up.... bought the car used "as is" and now am stuck.. seems wires under dashboard were sliced and taped back together.. wondering if these wires could cause the codes to go off. Told it was possible this car has flood damage... was planning on going out of town..but now scared to. Any advice?

17 codes is a lot and with that many codes at once is a good indicator that something electrical is not right. Is there any chance you can get a Carfax report from where you got the car from? That should tell whether or not it is a flood victim, also the title should have on it that it is salvaged / rebuild. Do you happen to know what the codes were or at least what they all related to?

the codes are Engine: P0201, P202, P0203, P0204, P0440, P0621

ABS Faults: C1232, C1221, C1225, C1232, C1236, C1245, C1254, C1275, C1298

Mechanic also said that vehicle wiring shows multiple modifications to factory wiring harness. Most noticable under dashboard area near steering column.

is the car running fine as far as performance wise? most of those engine codes are for fuel injector issues which you would easily notice in the engine performance. seems like the wiring is really a mess in this vehicle, honestly i believe i would try to get out of the vehicle and into another one if you can.