My TOY dealer said the power steering fluid is no longer a red color and should be flushed for @ $90. Is this necessary? The steering system works fine and I've never heard of doing this as "routine maintenance".
'01 Corolla LE, 75k
by Silver Bullet May 4, 2004
My TOY dealer said the power steering fluid is no longer a red color and should be flushed for @ $90. Is this necessary? The steering system works fine and I've never heard of doing this as "routine maintenance".
'01 Corolla LE, 75k
I've never heard of this, either. And it's not part of regular scheduled maintenance.
Maybe he charges 90 bucks because it doesn't have a drain plug, and he plans on taking the hydraulics apart to get the fluid out. Then you'd have a leak, which he can charge you to fix later.
Power steering fluid is nothing but Auto Tranny fluid. That means that he's charging you around $88.00 in labor!
Silver,
If you check your Owner's Manual or a Corolla ChAssis manual,
you will find that transmission fluid (Dexron III) is used in the Power Steering
System, same fluid as in the transmission.
You will need to syphon out the old fluid with a drill set-up or a hand crank
with a tube on the end, the tube must be small to get into the fluid
Power Steering fluid tank, and you will need to move the tube around to get
the fluid out, good luck!
Do not do anything. Your car is almost new and nothing could possibly happen to your powersteering liquid. Everytime I go to see the dealer for any reason they miss serious problems and want to make money on EASY repairs and gimmicks, like replacing liquids etc. In the worst case you can suck the liquid from the reservoir yourself and add new one - it wil be "redder"... Peace
Corolla 96DX 1.8L Manual/spoiler 170 000 miles 10W-40 Winter 15W-50 Mobil 1 Synthetic in the summer, oversized oil filter etc.
