What Does Brake Fluid Do?
Brake fluid is a hydraulic fluid that is designed to magnify the pressure that your foot applies to the brake pedal to operate your disk or drum braking system.
Why Does Brake Fluid Breakdown?
When you operate your brake system the friction generates heat. Any system that operates through temperature cycles is subject to developing condensation - water. Water compromises the braking power ("spongy" feel of brake pedal as the water boils in the system) and creates the mechanism for corrosion of brake lines and components.
What are the Consequences of Brake Fluid Breakdown?
Obviously the failure of your brake fluid can have life and death consequences to you, your family or to other people and their family.
Typically your brakes will give you plenty of warning signs before failure. Your brake pedal will feel like it needs to be pushed harder or farther (soft pedal feel) to slow and stop the vehicle. If that is ignored, you may eventually get to the point where the pedal is pushed and it "goes to the floor" and no braking occurs and this almost always results in collision.
On a less life-threatening level, not changing the fluid regularly will cause your bleeders to corrode and become inoperative. At that point the changing of brake fluid will become more costly.
Not changing the fluid will also result in corrosion within the system. If your brake lines are allowed to corrode they will need to be replaced (COSTLY) or could cause a catastrophic failure (COSTLY AND DANGEROUS).
Not operating the brake bleeders
What Do We Do to Replace the Brake Fluid?
A brake bleeder is connected to your master cylinder and pressurized. In a specific pattern the bleeder associated with each wheel is opened and the old fluid collected until the fluid runs clear.
SEE INFORMATION FOR POWER STEERING, DIFFERENTIAL AND MOTOR OIL BELOW.
What Does Coolant Do?
Coolant, as it name implies, is used to draw off heat from the engine's combustion and also from the transmission. In northern areas the coolant prevents the water in the cooling system from freezing and causing damage to the engine. The coolant also has to provide corrosion protection to the radiator.
What Causes Your Coolant to Breakdown?
Over time scale builds up on the radiator and that decreases its ability to allow heat to dissipate. When electronics are installed on a vehicle, but not properly grounded, the coolant can breakdown through a process called electrolysis.
Over time the additive package of the coolant breaks down after repetitive heating and cooling cycles.
What are the Consequences of Not Changing the Coolant?
There are several consequences of not changing your engine coolant regularly. The first, the mostly costly, and potentially most dangerous to your family is that the engine overheats. Obviously if that condition develops and is allowed to persist (you don't pull over and shut the engine off immediately) serious engine and transmission damage can occur (COSTLY AND POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS IF BREAKDOWN OCCURS ON AN EXPRESSWAY).
A second condition that most people are aware of is that coolant doesn't just cool in the summer, it has components known as anti-freeze to stop the coolant from freezing in temperatures below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, When those components become depleted the water in the coolant mix can freeze. That would cause your vehicle not to start in cold weather and the expansion caused by the formation of ice in your engine can cause very costly engine damage (COSTLY).
Allowing the anti-corrosion elements of your coolant to deplete will lead to corrosion in your radiator and cooling system that will reduce its ability to perform heat exchange (cooling) and eventually cause the radiator to corrode, leak and fail (COSTLY!).
Allowing the system to corrode and build up in scale can create debris in the system that will put your thermostat and heater core at risk of failure - usually during the coldest week of the year (COSTLY, UNCOMFORTABLE AND POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS).
What is Done to Maintain My Cooling System?
Our first recommendation is to bring your vehicle to a shop that regularly tests your fluids - bad things can happen to your coolant quickly so have it checked every oil change.
Our second recommendation is to have the additive package in your coolant replenished every year (every second or third oil change). Your shop should pour a quality additive package into your radiator to provide corrosion and antifreeze protection.
Think logically, the coolant doesn't stay good for 60,000 miles and then fail. The base fluid does not fail, but the additives do and around half way through their life the process will become accelerated. Address this situation before it becomes a risk to your vehicle asset.
Your shop can do a drain and fill service where the radiator drain plug is pulled, the coolant allowed to drain, the plug replaced and new coolant poured into the radiator. This can be effective if done more regularly (30,000 miles vs 60,000 miles on average).
More commonly your shop will employ a machine to connect to the hoses in your cooling system to completely flush the system (better level of cleaning) and to replace more of the coolant from the system.
What Does Transmission Fluid Do?
The second biggest mistake made by vehicle owners (after improper motor oil use) that results in the loss of their vehicle's asset value is to not maintain the automatic transmission fluid (ATF) in their vehicle.
Your automatic transmission fluid is a hydraulic lubricating fluid that also performs heat transfer and anti-corrosion roles.
What Causes it to Break Down?
The automatic transmission operates through heating and cooling cycles. Any fluid operated in heating and cooling cycles will generate condensation/water. Heating over time will break down the additive package in the fluid.
Towing, especially in areas with a lot of hills, will generate additional heat in the system and break down the fluid faster.
Getting stuck in mud or snow and generating excessive wheel spin will create enough heat to "burn" the ATF.
If the cooling system remain compromised for an extended period of time the ATF can also be overheated.
During the "break in" period of your car, imperfections in the metal components get worn off and that metal debris is kept suspended in the ATF by its additive package. Metal represents a risk to the seals in your transmission.
The ATF also contains additives that treat the seals in the transmission. When those additives become depleted the seals can become brittle and not seal the fluid causing leaks for this critical fluid.
What are the Consequences of Not Maintaining Your ATF?
Not maintaining your ATF will eventually result in damage to the transmission seals and that will result in a transmission failure. You will know when mechanical damage has been done as your transmission will clunk, or slip between gears.
What Do We Do to Replace Your Transmission Fluid?
A cleaner is added to your existing ATF to release debris that has built up in the system. A specialty machine is connected to your ATF's service lines or dip stick tube. Clean ATF fluid is introduced to the ATF with a specialty additive to provide seal swell properties and detergency to suspend any remaining debris. The machine is operated until clean fluid is going into the machine and coming out.
What Does Power Steering Fluid Do?
Power steering fluid is a hydraulic lubricating fluid that allows the force you apply to the steering wheel to be multiplied. The fluid also has additives to suspend debris in the system, to provide anti-corrosion and to maintain the health of the seals in the system.
Why Does Power Steering Fluid Break Down?
The steering system does operate through heating and cooling cycles and that will build up water in the fluid. During the break in period imperfect metal parts grind off metal shavings into the system. That metal debris will put the seals in the system and other parts at risk.
What are the Consequences of the Power Steering Fluid Breaking Down?
A break down in the fluid will result in irritating noises (steering squeal), harder steering and then system leaks and failure of the system. Replacing a power steering rack is very expensive.
What is Done to Replace the Power Steering Fluid?
A specialty cleaner is introduced into the power steering fluid reservoir and the mechanical operates your steering system as far left and as far right as they can operate it.
A specialty machine is used to extract dirty hot power steering fluid as cool, new, clean fluid is introduced into the system.
What Does Gear Oil Do?
Gear oil is a lubricating hydraulic fluid that reduces friction, transfers heat and provides corrosion protection in differentials in rear wheel, four wheel and all wheel drive vehicles.
Why Does Gear Oil Break Down?
Gear oil is subject to heating and cooling cycles and it accumulates metal debris during the break in period. The additive package that provides corrosion resistance and the ability to suspend debris becomes compromised.
What Happens if the Gear Oil is Not Changed When it is Worn?
The differential will eventually lose sufficient friction modification properties and the increased friction will cause increased heat until there is a mechanical breakdown (COSTLY).
What is Done to Maintain the System?
A specialty tool is used to reach and extract the fluid from the differential. New gear oil is then injected into the differential.
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