I did the first annual brake fluid flush on the Escape yesterday. It is now a year old. Actually it is older than that if you start from the Febuary 03 build date.
Anyway, I was shocked at how black the old fluid was. I can't remember ever seeing fluid that bad that early. The car still has less than 12,000 miles on it. Although it came out pretty good, I may do it again in a month or two to get it even cleaner.
I was not able to suck more than about half of the fluid out of the master cylinder before starting due to how the resivoir is baffled, which means that the final color of the fluid is still slightly darker than the new stuff.
So what's so great about Ford's brake fluid? It may start life at a 550 degree dry boiling point, but it doesn't last, and the wet boiling point is only about half that.
When I change the Valvoline Synpower brake fluid in the SVT each year, the old fluid still looks nearly new.
On the Escape, I used BG DOT 4 fluid. I scored a complementry quart bottle sample from my BG rep. It has a dry boiling point or 506 and a wet boiling point of 311. I'll see if he will give me another quart to repeat the process.
There are two things that I do during the anniversay month every year on my cars. I change the brake fluid and the coolant. Next month I will be doing the same to the SVT for the 7th time. It now has nearly 197,000 miles on it. It is now at the age where such agressive maintenace really starts to pay off.
