Recently I have noticed a little bit of power steering fluid on the ground under the jeep (96 4.0 2x4). I realize I might have a small leak, but last week when parallel parking i noticed white smoke coming out the left side of the hood after I finished parking. I opened up the hood and noticed fluid had sprayed along the hoses coming out of the power steering pump - I assume that is what caused the smoke...

My question I need help on is how to determine if I should replace the whole pump along with the hoses, or just go for the hoses? I assume since I am going to have to take the hoses off either way I might as well go ahead and change the pump too as its pretty cheap (~60ish) for the whole kit vs. 20 or so for the hoses alone.

Thoughts?

 

If it's the original pump, changing it might not be a bad idea.

 

Another vote for just changing it out. Do it once.