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Re: $70 brake fluid worth it? Or just the $6 kind? Posted by Ari [Email] (#2847) [Profile/Gallery] (more from Ari) on Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:57:42 In Reply to: $70 brake fluid worth it? Or just the $6 kind?, KDA, Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:13:20 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
Boiling point and aging are two different things. Very, very few times are you going to boil the brake fluid driving on the street - or driving on the street not being chased by the police. You boil brake fluid when you do race track driving - a minute 20 lap with two maximum braking points per lap. So every 40 seconds you do maximum braking, over and over and over again. The brake fluid gets hot. That isn't how you drive normally.
So a high boiling point is nice, but you'll never need it in normal, even very sporty, street driving.
As to fluid change interval, that has nothing to do with boiling point. Over time, brake fluid absorbs water from the air. That water sits around and corrodes the lines, pistons, and seals. The longer it sits there, the more water it absorbs, and the more corrosion products keep sitting around, corroding more. So you want to regularly flush the fluid, no matter what the boiling point.
For regular street driving, I go with a normal, brand name fluid. I like Castrol, but other big brands (e.g. Valvoline) work just fine. No need to spend $70. Hey, maybe the expensive stuff works great in a Ferrari. If I were taking my Saab to Lime Rock Race Track on a regular basis (to drive the track), I'd think about upgrading the brake fluid. If I were just to drive there to watch a race, no matter how spirited I was in the curvy bits on the way to the track, normal brake fluid works just great.
posted by 192.249.4...
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