Which Brake Fluid?

[goaferboy]

Been getting a bit of a "creaking" from my brake pedal recently, so decided to throw some WD40 at all the moving parts. Job done, but the creaking is still there, so I took a good look over all the braking mechanism up to the master cylinder area, oiling everything as I went. I've noticed that my brake fluid is a little low, so that's my next port of call. The cap says DOT 3, but it seems that DOT 3 is pretty hard to find.

So my question is, will DOT 4 be a suitable replacement? From what information I can find, it's just got a higher boiling point, which I guess is better? Is DOT 4 going to harm the car in any way? Will it mix with the DOT 3 that I assume is in the system already?

Thanks guys!

[lewp91]

DOT 4 could possibly kill your seals, i would go with a DOT3 replacement, or if you use your car in any performance aspect got for AP racing http://www.apracing.com/info/index.asp? ... e+Fluid_33

dot4 just conforms to higher specs but i was told (not sure if this is misinformed) that the higher the dot the easier it will seek out any possible warn seals or corroded parts and find an escape...

[ianaudia4]

VW recommends changing the brake fluid every 2 years so drain all the old stuff out and refill.

[goaferboy]

VW recommends changing the brake fluid every 2 years so drain all the old stuff out and refill.

How would I go about doing that? Never really looked into it before!

[ianaudia4]

To drain the fluid you need to open up the bleed nipples, but I wouldn't recommend doing it without knowing what to do mate. Do you have a Haynes manual, it tells you how in there?

[mr.brown]

To drain the fluid you need to open up the bleed nipples, but I wouldn't recommend doing it without knowing what to do mate.

What he said ^^^^

If this is your first time tackling brakes -

a) the brake bleed screws on the rear wheel cylinders will snap off
b) you will round off the nut on the bleed screws on the front calipers
c) end up with a worse pedal than before

Just buy DOT 4 and top-up for now

[mark1gls]

You will really notice the differance if you have the same brake fluid in your system for years.

Start socking your bleed nipples in WD40

It's not a difficult job to do but if its not been done for years and years you can have trouble with bleed nipples snapping off.

You could get a presure bleeding system and then you could get away with only opening one of the front bleed nipples and changing the fluid that way. That's how a VW garage did it with the wife's Polo, but I would bleed each bleed nipple to get all of the brake fuild out of the brake lines.

I've been using DOT 4 for years with no problems for years.

Read tha Haynes manual or get a garage to do as your brake are an important part of the car, good luck ..

[Nate]

DOT4 is fully compatible with something designed for DOT3.

mixing up DOT5 and DOT5.1 is where you would start having problems.