Quote:
Originally Posted by masraum
I'd say that 1 car in a million EVER over the life of the vehicle gets it's brake fluid changed/flushed. Yes, folks here on the board probably do it fairly often (by comparison) and track folks. But my guess is that the avg Joe and Jane NEVER do it. The only time it gets done in most cars would be if there's a problem that causes the fluid to leak out, or if the fluid is bled enough that it's changed through bleeding. But I suspect most bleeding results in just some fluid being changed, not all of it.
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Completely agree with your post here, most manufacturers have no recommendation for changing the brake fluid in their maintenance schedule and most cars never get it changed. I was surprised many years ago when I found out that BMW and Porsche had the procedure in their regular service interval. If DOT 3 attracts less moisture, that makes sense as far as why it's used in vehicles with no recommendation to change it.
I've always known that DOT 5 is completely incompatible with other fluids, I just never knew why. I thought that it was because it was synthetic but the stuff I bought yesterday is synthetic DOT 3/4. Apparently it's compatible with regular 3/4(?) I actually bought it by mistake, was dashing into NAPA to get it for friend's kid's old Tacoma. What is really strange is that I recently picked up a digital brake fluid tester online that checks moisture content. The brand new bottle pictured above of the Valvoline crap tests as having 1.5% water in it, I've never seen that in new fluid. It's not a crazy high percentage but all other brands test zero or close.
