Idiot needs HELP!!!
 

I have an 09 touring sport. (Modded)
My (red)brake,(amber) ABS, (amber)VDC, (amber)TRAC CONTROL
Lights all came on so I concluded (correctly) than by brake fluid is low.

Here is the problem, I put brake fluid in my power steering reservoir (oops!) and drove around a week wondering if it was time for a new master cylinder. (Cause the lights stayed on (doh!).

I know brake fluid is nasty caustic stuff and worry it has damaged my steering mechanisms.

Three questions:
1. Will a steering fluid flush at brakes plus (using valvoline synthetic) sufficiently remove the brake fluid or do I need a more involved process?

2. What damage should I look for?

3. Can you guys please go gently on me for being such a bonehead? (That's more of a request than a question I suppose lol)

4. (Bonus question) What am I forgetting.

Thanks in advance for your input. When I looked over at the HUGE brake fluid label on the cover my heart almost exploded knowing I'd driven a few hundred miles with brake fluid in my steering rack!!!!

Well flushing it out asap would be the first step. Since this may be a little bit of a one off I dont think anyone can propectively anticipate what problems will occur.

The best thing would be to flush it twice then refill to ensure 99.9% of the wrong fluid is flushed.

You may want to leave any fluid changing, filling etc to the pros.... Hopefully you have no future problems from this.

huh... how much brake fluid did you add? if it's not much (considering your steering fluid wasn't low?) i would just flush the steering fluid and forget about it.

brake fluid is corrosive, but i found it's not like acid where it starts buring through metals immediately upon contact. :icon17:

A cheaper way to flush the system is to use ATF fluid, it is has a high detergent content which will help clean out the brake fluid and bring back some lubricity to the system. Then once you run a bunch of this through just swap it out for your power steering fluid. I actually did the exact same thing on my old truck back in the day. I would just say flush it a bunch and see what you got and go from there.

This short of stuff always happens to me, haha I know the feeling believe me.

^ This is true, if you only added a bit then just flush with PS fluid. I assumed you filled it with brake fluid like I did when I did a flush. haha.

I'd do a combo of both, I'd use ATF to flush it once, then go back to Nissan OEM power steering fluid. From WHAT I KNOW, Nissan's PS fluid has added friction whatever the hells. So IMO, it's good to stay OEM

oh boy.....that's not good. Like you said, brake fluid is very caustic and could eat away the seals. You need to flush everything out ASAP and hope it didn't already do damage. It's kind of hard to really tell how much damage it caused until something fails. At least it wasn't ALL brake fluid in there. It doesn't sound like you had to add much fluid, so I'm assuming some of it has been diluted by the original power steering fluid. Definitely have it flushed sooner rather than later.

yah, i too would stay oem for steering fluid. just to be safe.

Yeah I'm at brakes plus having it flushed right now. I pulled over to check why my lights came back then realized my mistake. I drove to closest place to flush in a near panic. Lol

I will probably drive the new stuff for a week or two then flush it again to try and get it really flushed (I want to run the fluid through the system a bit)

I only put in about a tablespoons worth and I'm hoping it stayed mostly up in the reservoir. I don't know how much that stuff circulated down into the system.

As per letting the pros work on my car. No way! Sure, i massively Goofed this up, but I'd sooner buy a new f'ed up car every year than stop having the fun of spinning wrenches Changing fluids and modding up my ride. These bonehead mistakes are how I've learned most of the cool stuff in life. Driving for me is part logistics, part hobby, part pure joy. Breaking my car from working on it is all just part of the fun.

If my steering pump or rack seals go bad from this, I'll upgrade, add a cooler put in some awesome color coded lines and move forward poorer wiser but most of all happy!

Thanks for the input guys. Ill post back here if I encounter problems and ill post the "fix" on my build page.

p.s. the brakes plus manager says this is no big deal due to the small amount of added fluid. (I hope he is right)

Thanks for the advice on OEM. Ill reflush with that in a few hundred miles to really insure the brake fluid is totally out. I think a few weeks running Valvoline should be okay.

Ill have to start researching after market pump and rack setups just in case of massive failure. I'm assuming there will be warning signs of failure before totally lose my steering. Ill keep an ear and eye out for squeals and drips!

What do you think will be damaged by this?

The pump?
The seals inside my steering rack?
The fluid lines?

I really don't think it'll be tooooooo bad, maybe the pump will have premature failure as well as MAYBE the seals in the rack will fail prematurely.
I bet they'll all last past 100k miles before you feel or see or hear anything

this is like adding a sugar cube to a 5gallon water cooler. :icon17:

You guys are making me feel better. Thx.

Lets just cross our fingers and hope your car gets its period.


Or did I miss something? haha