Question About Power Steering Fluid?

My thoughts exactly! But still... Wtf?

 

I used Maxlife ATF at ~100k miles.

My rack started leaking around 130k miles.

My brother changed his around the same time and is leak free...

My new rack is filled with DexIII, I’ll probably stick with DexIII when I change the fluid again at 200k.

 

Don't know. don't care. Yet another one to avoid. I bought a couple of cases cheap. The BMW dealer did the same.
I tried a synthetic but it made a lot of noise in the toys and The bmw for some strange reason So I use the cheap stuff and it works

 

Manual clearly states ATF on my 2011

 

I owned a 2nd Gen T4R and had to keep adding power steering fluid because of leaks. It was after research (and reading the cap) that I found out about the ATF. The reasoning I found was the PS will break down the seals in the system and cause it to leak. And that once you put PS in the system, the only way to get it to stop leaking is to either rebuild the system with new seals or replace it all.

 

My book say Dex II or III but my cap says power steering fluid and the fluid in it currently in PS fluid not ATF. Im in Canada and I think its the cold factor maybe.

 

Toyota OEM fluid is clear and does not have the red dye that auto parts stores dex iii has. I'm not sure how you can tell what kind of fluid is in there right now.

I vote go by the book

 

pretty sure Toyota says use ATF
people use ATF
I've ran and still run ATF

you can put whatever you want
I doubt Toyota changed the steering system to ship the trucks to Canada

The cap says P/S fluid because that what it is
a reservoir that holds fluid for the P/S system

just switched to some recommended and compatible red $10 bottle of Valvoline
as the grey bottle of synthetic M1 ATF appears to have gone out of stock or stopped being made
used to be easier to find that one than starting at a bunch of similar but different Valvoline bottles

I know German cars used to use G002 (mineral) and switched to G004 (syn)
aka Pentosin CHF11S (green bottle), then CHF202 (silver bottle)
I wonder why.
They also break.

regarding cold, ATF also comes in transmissions and does fine there.
I know some areas, cars come with (or people add) various heaters
electric pad to warm up the oil pan
Eberspacher heater, etc.

there's probably online spec sheets of each fluid to see how their viscosities compare at different temps
maybe even a BITOG thread on it