Power Steering pump woes

When I changed my idler pulley I decided to the the rest of the pulleys for play and noticed the power steering pulley had some play, but it seemed to be the shaft, not the pulley. There is an intermittent noise that sounds like a bad bearing above 2500 rpms by the p/s pump, so it makes sense. The power steering has been a bit wierd since I got the D 2 years ago, but I never checked the pulley, thought it was just a garbage design. I decide to change it before the shaft gives or something leaves me stranded.

I started looking around at Advance, Auto Zone, Napa, API and Robbins. Advance website shows no direct fir with 734 possible matches lol. I call the local store, guy says there are two part numbers and tells me to order online to save 20%. I go online, enter the part numbers and it's a pair of jack stands. Second part number doesn't exist. WTF

Nobody has a pump in stock, so I call the dealer and I'm told Chrysler redesigned the p/s pump and I have an old design that's no longer available. The new units require a new bracket, a reservoir and obviously the pump. $113 reservoir, $15.85 bracket (maybe $1585- it is a dealer after all), and the $514 pump. I didn't get into the cost of a pulley with them.

So, has anyone replaced their power steering pump and had any issues with the rebuilt units fitting or functioning? I want to get this done since the weather is sucking more every day.

Good thing you asked! I just replaced my pump about 2 weeks ago. I first got a replacement pump from federated auto which was $110 I believe, but when I went to pick it up the pulley wasn't included. For a pulley you basically have to take your luck on Ebay, CL, or something like that. I ended up just going to a local junk yard, spent $56 got a replacement pump that still had the pulley on (with warranty).

Yeah, the pulleys are $40-$50 alone through the local stores. I considered the salvage yard route but haven't made a decision yet. The noise has been decreasing- the last few days there has been no noise... I'm not sure what to make of that.
$56 sounds like a good deal to me, definately worth considering.

I wasn't able to find the pulleys at any store, but I found the pump. And you can find the pulley, but not the pump. I think we need to file a well thought out letter of complaint.

...not even the stealership had the pumps in stock, everything was special order. Either the hemi's don't like power steering pumps, or, there's just so many Ram's with 5.7's they would be special ordering pumps all the time. The 4.7, well, not so popular in the Ram's.

Check out RockAuto - they list both the pump and the pulley for an '05 Durango 4.7L.

The pumps on Cryslers are just bad to begin with

Thanks pershing,
I found them both on partsgeek earlier too, but I prefer to buy local when I can...nothing worse than mailing the wrong parts back, and, I'd rather pay my "neighbors" than some anonymous person- don't get me wrong, I'm cheap and shop around though.

I got fed up with most of the local stores when they kept telling me that I didn't know what I was talking about. The local NAPA store has decided to under price the chain parts stores recently and have backed up their claims with honest savings. They earned my business when I was working on the wife's car a couple of weeks ago. They will get my business again.