Power Steering Fluid Change/Replace/Type?

[Pauls898]

Hi

I want to change or at least replace my Power Steering Fluid, it's been in the car since new so almost 7 Years old and has gone black and dirty looking, I find my steering is a bit on the heavy side while driving and I get excess noises when on full lock I assume from the power steering pump.

I watched some videos on YouTube (ChrisFiX) where you can simply suck it out of the reservoir till empty refill start engine run for a bit then repeat this a few time to try to replace most of the old fluid without taking off hoses to drain it out from under the car. Is this a good method, it sounds easy to do this way.

The other thing is it doesn't say anywhere in the owners manual as to what type of steering fluid to use? I'm thinking of replacing it with Dexron III which is RED in colour? I seem to remember mine was RED when the car was new but it's gone a muddy Brown colour so hence I think it's time to change it out?

Your comments please and has anyone changed theirs ? and did it make a difference?

Thanks

[micheal balbrig]

As far as I know it should be green in colour G 200 vag
If fluids are mixed incorrectly the fluid turns brown.
There is a very good article in one of this months car magazines on power steering units,not sure if its ok to mention name.

[zollaf]

it does sound like yours has been mixed. easiest way to change is to find the return pipe on the bottom of the resevoir. remove the pipe and blank off the resevoir hole. now extend the pipe using some pipe into a bucket. fill the resevoir . have an assistant start the car and turn the wheel from lock to lock whilst you keep the resevoir full. when the waste going into the bucket is the same colour as what you are pouring into the resevoir then you are done and can reconnect the pipes and top up the resevoir. however, as your system is designed for green mineral fluid and its been filled with red atf as suggested then you may find you have problems further down the line with leaking seals and will probably end up needing a new rack and pump. however you may be lucky and a full fluid change does the job. buy a few litres of fluid ready to do this, probably 5 litres to fully flush all the atf out.

[Pauls898]

Hi Yes I can see two pipes, one goes straight to the pump the other disappears off somewhere, so I assume the return is the other one? and not the one which goes to the pump, Yes I just sucked some fluid out and it's Brown? looks just like dark engine oil colour?

[niall campbell]

look at the cap , it should have mineral or synthetic on it

do not mix.

Mine is green but MINERAL oil

When I went to dealer, the specs had been upgraded !

the cap should also have the spec on it

[zollaf]

Hi Yes I can see two pipes, one goes straight to the pump the other disappears off somewhere, so I assume the return is the other one? and not the one which goes to the pump, Yes I just sucked some fluid out and it's Brown? looks just like dark engine oil colour?
you assume correctly. there is usally a filter within the resevoir. some can be removed and cleaned, some require a new resevoir. i would clean or replace the filter when you do the flush.

[Pauls898]

Yes I have spoken with my Audi Dealer he confirms it should be GREEN fluid so either the garage I took it to last for it's servicing has added some RED to it or it's just got dirty over time, as I sucked some out and it's Brown in colour? it looks like engine oil colour so yes I'm fetching that stuff out!!
Audi sell it for £11.00 a litre and said I'd need two bottles to do a complete fluid change.

[Pauls898]

Well I've done the Power Steering Fluid change, well as well as I could do it, I found I couldn't remove a hose as they have special high pressure hose clips and I got no way of re-doing these up :-( So I took to sucking the fluid out of the reservoir filling cap, however there's a filter in there so I could only suck out half the fluid out, so I did it about 5 times using up a litre of Power Steering fluid, it was very black what I sucked out, ran the car went for a drive and sucked it out again, seem a lot cleaner now and is now Green, looks like Fairy Liquid :-)
The stuff I got from Audi dealer was VOLKSWAGEN G 004 000 M2 in case anybody else fancies doing there's As I said I used up almost the whole litre bottle by sucking out as much as the filter would allow re-filling, turning the steering from Lock to Lock a few times, on the forth go I drove the car about 20 Miles and did it again, so think I've got most of the old dirty stuff out.
Does anybody know how to remove that filter from the top of the reservoir ? It seems loose will turn around but it won't lift out eerrrg to enable sucking out the whole reservoir contents :-(