I’ve been looking into a ‘15 plate NC with 26k. Turns out it has more years with no service history than with. Owned by the venders wife, he can provide no evidence of service in the four years she has owned it! In those years it’s done 7k. I assume if they don’t sell it, it will finally get an oil change in about another four years time!
Apart from anything else it’s a huge mis-management of a 9/10k asset. I offered 8k with partial history. Now I have the full story I’m backing away.
A fine example of changing oil on the odometer 
That’s a good point ^
The ones who diss and grumble at servicing annually, even if ‘just’ 1-2-3K miles whatever were covered, using ‘science’ as the justification, well, they, or the dealer selling it, would have jack chance of me buying it.
‘Hiya mate, I’m interested in that car, Got the service history?’
‘Yeah,this ones great, he did the first 3 annually when it was under warranty, but then it looks like he used science, so serviced it once every 3 years after that.’ ‘When he amassed 12K miles’
‘Gorr, great mate, here’s the money, give me the keys!!!’
It was quite a few years ago, but I remember Ford and Toyota both studied the performance of oil filters independently and they both concluded that the filter actually trapped and filtered finer particles up to 10 microns more effeceintly at around 3000 miles compared to when the filter is newly fitted with 0 miles. The performance continues for another 3000 miles or so and then it begins to restrict the flow slightly. For sootier diesel engines the clogging effect was more dramatic and the filter was typically useless well before 10,000 miles was put on the filter. Modern petrol engines run much cleaner and are machined to tighter tolerances needing less running in compared to cars from decades ago so I guess that maybe why filters can last a bit longer on these NDs. However, they also showed that at around 1 year old or so with contaminated oil and low miles the filter was beginning to degrade noticeably with flow restriction, hence you need to change the oil and filter at 1 year whatever. I will struggle to do more than 3000 miles a year so it’s not an issue for me
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Guys
Further to this as i said i would report back, here is my findings.
Apols if slight off topic but it may be useful to others.
So i bought a brake fluid tester off amazon and the first one didnt even work, so got replacement, of a different brand, £7.
Just tested the Mazda which i know has fresh brake fluid in the last 18 months max as i did it. Tester showed less than one per cent. Tried it several times to be sure. All good.
Then i tried the Merc and wow, 9 /10 years old fluid and it lit up like a Xmas tree. I was truly shocked as the fluid was clean and healthy looking, golden even.
It will be getting changed next week for sure. I really was shocked how it lit up. It sits in the garage which is warmish and dry most of the time and sees little moisture or so i thought.
So glad for the previous comments which made me check. Thank you.
I still stand by my theory that oil gets changed once a year minimum though but that debate goes on…!
Regards
Rob.
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Great update Rob, some food for thought there.
I change my oil every year along with the MOT, but my brake fluid hasn’t been changed for three years. I thought all was well as it’s almost clear in colour and my pedal feels fine, not so sure now after reading this.
Can you tell me what tester you hought, and do you just dip it in the reservoir in the engine bay? Does brake fluid circulate in and out of the reservoir? I’ve no idea, as you can tell lol!
Doesn’t water in the brake fluid cause corrosion of the brake components from the inside out?
Also water will presumably turn to steam when the fluid gets hot when pushing the braking system, not a desirable thing in those circumstances.
First link I found…
Cheers John, good article.
I read that brake fluid doesn’t circulate, just gets pushed from the master cylinder to all four cylinders.
I’ve also read that replacing every 2-3 years is sufficient, to prevent corroded brake pipes and sticking calipers, and of course maintain efficient braking.
When I was in my teens and twenties, I never replaced brake fluid and had absolutely no problems braking. Far more likely to encounter sticky calipers and corroded pipes.
I was fortunate as never had the former but had to replace brake pipes at least once - but that’s pretty good after almost 40 years of motoring.
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Each to their own but I would worry about brake fade just when I didn’t want it… And that would then likely involve more than just me.
I change it too, but the internet is full of all sorts of hysterics. Not changing brake fluid for 4 years sometimes garners the same kind of stuff as someone saying they got 5 year old tyres- often gets greeted with advice on how their going to get a blowout by the end of their driveway
Hi sdg111
Yeh defo a wake up call for me.
The tester is like the one in the link someone showed previously .Pen style with different types of dot3 ,dot4 to select first on the pen style unit, then just pop the forks on the end into the brake fluid. It then lights up accordingly .Its sold by ZKTOOLS and has German name but its in the garage now so will check tomorrow .Unfortunately im colour blind so cant really see the different colours but as the bulbs illuminate higher and higher 1-5 they do change to red apparently. All five bulbs lit on the merc test.
Regards
Rob
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I’ve got one of them. I wanted it really to test my Nissan Elgrand’s b.fluid, but annoyingly it’s positioned in the engine bay where I can’t put the brake fluid ‘pen’ in. This isn’t my one but you see what I mean. The brake fluid rez is one the bolted on. The pen don’t go in as it’s on an angle. I don’t really want to open it up and use a syringe for a sample, either.
There’s normally a removable screen you can take out to get the pen down to the fluid.
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Thanks Rob, appreciate that. Away to have a look for it now.
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Can’t see anything on mine. You got the membrane in there, but nothing, access easier wise.
Maybe undo two bolts holding it and tilt it forwards until fluid can be reached…?
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Rob, when you tested the brake fluid did you remove the gauze on the reservoir? I bought the tool, tested it in water, when it all lit up. Tried it in the car but couldn’t get the prongs to go into until the fluid reaches the plastic rim as stated. Anyway, it showed one green light and thus no water present. I’m guessing as it’s ultra sensitive half way up the prongs would have given the correct reading.
Yep remove the little filter so prongs can be dipped in fluid.
Cheers Rob. Away to do it again just to be sure.
Well, I took off the filter and tested it twice. From only a green light earlier, it’s now one green and one yellow, so under 1%.
I’m happy to leave it this year (Mot and service in Dec) and do it next year. I’ll test it again in six months after winter has passed to see if it’s changed.
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Just thinking out loud here. If brake fluid is in a sealed system and doesn’t circulate, does the moisture reading from the reservoir actually bear any resemblance or have any significance compared to the actual moisture that could be in the hoses, pistons etc?
As it’s been over three years since it was last flushed, I’m going to go ahead and get it changed in December. My garage flagged up light corrosion starting in a section of brake hose last December. Whether that’ll have deteriorated further I can only guess, but if they change hoses then that’s an immediate system flush in any case.
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