Today i decided to drain my power steering fluid. It looked fine on the little dip stick. Still nice and pinky/orangy. Looked totally normal and fine but i decided to drain it anyway.

Once i got about half a litre out in a clear container, i was very suprised to see that it was nearly Black. It looks cleanish when you only have a little on the dipstick but get a fair bit out and it looks filthy black.

I topped it up with nice new fluid and its looks great now. Steering feels slightly lighter but i guess that could be the placibo effect but i'm sure it is.

I take it this was the first time this has been done to my '99 Verada and i'm wondering why they dont specify people to do it more often as i'm guessing the dirty fluid cant be to good for the system. Also cleaned out the mesh filter in the resivour which had a bit of grit/dirt through it. And this is comming from a car that is never in dirty/dusty conditions to allow dirt and dust to get into the system.

Just thought i would let people know and was wondering if anyone else has had this experience.

From my experience at the end of the day, the power steering fluid is like bottom of the list when it comes to importance, thats probably why people dont pay much attention to it. As long as it is clean (ie no grit, thats what the strainer is there for), and it is full, it is probably still pretty good.

No harm in changing it over though. I have a leak in my power steering pump at the moment, so all that will get changed in the near future.

I noticed in my Haynes manual there is no mention of draining out the system just to change it (not that I can find anyway). Only mentions getting rid of air, and keeping level correct.

You'll have to repeat this process a few times - 3 or 4 times. The rest of the crapola fluid is still in the pump and rack of course, so it takes a few changes to get it real clean. BTW - if you look carefully at the rim of the nylon strainer you can see it has notches for removal with a circlip plier - take it out (its a twist and jiggle arrangement) and then use a turkey baster to remove the old fluid - heaps easier then removing those wretched little pipes under the unit.

Hi family wagon
I had a similar experience with my TR I found that the hoses were disintergrating on the inside and replaced them. I used a product designed to reduce friction at the molecular level (small power gain - less drag on the power train)and ran the car for another 1000k, drained and then refilled with fluid and a top-up of product The car ran perfectly. Same thing with a friends nissan - had a noisy p/s pump (mechanic friend said would need replacing soon)
Added one dose of product - no noise and no problems for 2 more years until car was sold :cool:

ok so this is old but what i want to know now is witch fluid should i use for my 2 maggies the 2005 awd series 2 vrx and the 2001 tj executive fwd. thanks. :)

Safest to use genuine, it is not expensive and is designed for our cars

I was wondering whuch is the return hose on the reservoir the bottom one on the reservoir
Or th one on the side of the reservoir
I have a verada kj v6