Should You Change Power Steering Fluid in Your Car? Myth Busted

rev up your engines power steering it's great when it works but when it breaks it can cost a fortune to fix so today I'm going to show you how to keep it from breaking in the first place now there's two main types of power steering systems the older style that uses power steering fluid and a pump we're going to talk about that first then later I'll talk about the modern ones that use electronic power steering assist that don't use any type of fluid it's all electronic now this is a 2007 Matrix and it's got a hydraulic pump and here's how the system works when you turn your steering wheel the high pressure fluid from the pump that can be up to 1500 pounds per square inch so you turn to the right it pushes the steering the rod pushing to the right has extra power from the pump and it's easy to turn power assist steering because it's an assist system let's say your pump breaks the belt falls out of it you'll still have steering if your car loses power it won't be you're going down the road and you turn the wheel reel to not hit a tree and it goes to the tree it will still turn it just will not have the assist it'll just be harder to turn now people today take power steering for granted when I was young a lot of cars didn't have power steering but they all have it now well when these systems break they can cost a small fortune to fix so there's some very basic maintenance you can easily do yourself to keep them from breaking in the first place because the fluid gets too dirty and it wears a hole in the seals on the pump the pumps cost hundreds of dollars and if it gets dirty enough that the seals on the power steering rack go bad facing the big old power steering rack down here that's only the end it goes the whole way across the place that I'm realigning the front end can go anywhere from a thousand to many thousands I've seen Mercedes Benz is where some of those jobs are eight twelve thousand dollars replacing those things so you don't want them to leak you want them to last here's really easy stuff you can do yourself to keep them from breaking in the first place you can just use one of these turkey baster you stick it in your soft fluid out put it in now look at this I've been a bad boy look it's gray and black now I'll show you the difference this is what to tell you in a brand new fluid should look like look it's pretty much clear I mean yeah look tint to it but it's pretty much Clear it's not like that filthy stuff I just took out what you want to do is you want to take as much fluid as you can out of the reservoir with a turkey baster or I'm a professional mechanic and I'm lazy I want to do things quicker so I use my Mighty Vac vacuum pump it sucks it out faster they don't cost much they're real Handy for emptying all kinds of stuff out spill something in your house you can suck it all up they're real Handy pumps now once you suck it out fill it up to the top fill line put the top on then we'll close the hood we're not done driving around the blocks so the fluid circulates then we'll do this and we're going to do this five or six times because it's kind of like change the automatic transmission fluid in most cars when you drain them even if they hold 12 and a half quarts two or three quarts comes out so you got to do them a bunch of times to get a bunch of the fluid out so around the block we go make a lot of turns the more turns you make the more it's going to circulate so we'll just drive crazily down the road there's no one out here this morning anyways that will make the fluid circulate and we'll do this five or six times so here we go again tuck the dirty fluid out porno Florida and driving around it's that easy to keep it clean so the dirty fluid doesn't wear out internal parts make sure you just get the right fluid as you can see on this thing it says for use in all manufacturers cars SUVs and minivans do not use with Hondas yeah don't use it with Honda's other thing of course is make sure your power steering belt is in good shape it runs off a belt now I just changed this belt the grooves are clean it doesn't make any noise this car only has one belt so make sure your fan belt's good it says an automatic tensioner you don't have to tension it if your car has various belts check the power steering belt like on my old Celica as you can see we pop the hood so the thing has its own belt another steering pump right over there and it's got a little baby tiny belt right there a little baby tiny one and then the big one runs the alternator and then the one in the middle it runs the air conditioner it's got three belts now of course the belt isn't as critical as clean fluid because if the belt is loose it might squeal and the power steering will bind you just replace it it's not actually damaging anything on the pump the pump just wouldn't be pumping right he isn't going to hurt the pump the only thing that can hurt the pump is if you have an old style one like my Celica where you have to manually adjust it if you adjust it too tight being too tight will burn the bearings off but most cars are like this Matrix one belt and it's automatically tensioned so you don't have to touch anything just make sure the belt isn't falling apart so now you know how to maintain your power steering now that's fluid so you don't waste money later on the breaks because you didn't do some simple maintenance well what about electronic power steering well let's say you got a vehicle with electronic power steering assist now I don't have any here because I'm cheap and my car's around oh and my son's new vehicles are Toyota Tacomas and they both still have power steering pumps because Toyota wants reliable trucks that don't break and they don't want people mad at them they take the truck out in the mud and woods and that water gets in the electric pump and ruins it and they get mad so they stayed with power steering pumps and their little pickup trucks even if it's a four or V6 they're still running pumps on them but many vehicles use electronic power steering pumps especially a lot of American cars and since they're run through Electronics here's what you have to maintain battery an alternator you want to make sure your battery's good if your battery's weak you can get voltage surges in the system not only can that destroy the alternator can wipe out electronic opponents so it's a very simple test every once in a while have your battery tested check it out here's how easy it is battery tester takes a few seconds battery health test 550 cranking amps 5.49 that's close enough who cares 100 82 percent life it's an excellent shake this is a perfect example of not listening to the expression if it ain't broke don't fix it hey the battery's getting weak replace it don't wait it can damage all kinds of electronics and the same things goes with the alternator test it every once in a while that takes two minutes to if it's getting weak replace it don't wait till it goes out it can strand you and it can send voltage surges and Destroy stuff now if you find your car cranks low get the battery tested if you find your headlights get dim at night when you're idling but then go up when you go faster have the alternator tested that generally warns you if your battery light's coming onto the dash of course get it tested immediately that to see what's wrong but the other main thing is stop any type of corrosion corrosion makes electrical wires have more resistance they get hot they can short things up now the other main thing is stay away from Deep Water you get deep enough to suck water in here while it's too late when you're that deep anyway electronic power steering pumps guess what they're down there and Iraq and boot is way down now theoretically they're sealed against water let's face you got an electric motor you soak it in water guess what's going to happen it's going to short itself out and of course you guys that live up north and you're driving in winter with all that slush snow and salt mixed in with it that gets all over and starts shorting out Electronics I mean let's face the facts emergency brake parking brake on this is still working and it's a 94. the mechanical parking brake on the 07 Matrix there never touched it works fine electronic parking Brakes in the back electric salt water water mixing together not a great idea so I really don't like electronic Fire Sticks I'm a cheapskate I don't like fixing stuff I want something that's going to last 30 40 years not something that oh well it lasted six years then it burned out now you got to buy another one that's ridiculous my son had to replace his LG refrigerator that was three years old because compressor broke because it was a a new design they called it our great new design it's quieter yeah it's real quiet because it stopped working in only three years some of the stuff they're taking it too far with electronics you're gonna find many new cars do have electric power steering you have no choice but you're either going to have a reservoir somewhere and a pump that runs off a belt or no fluid and no pump that goes to the power steering well with a little bit of Maintenance you can continue to take it for granted and not have to worry so much about oh man what if that thing breaks it's going to cost me 1500 bucks just a little maintenance can go a long way and here's some bonus questions and answers Captain clovian says my brakes grind after an hour of driving when I stop 10 miles an hour slower my honest mechanic says the brakes and rotors are fine what's the problem the problem is your brake pads are made out of the wrong material he said he's honest so he looks and see look they're all still thick don't worry about it if you don't care it isn't going to hurt anything and here's the reason the ground because when I was a young mechanic brake pads are made out of asbestos and it can take heat right they use buildings for stopping fires of course then it causes lung cancer too so that's why they don't sell them anymore but they didn't make any noise and they lasted a long time but then they made them illegal you can't make brake asbestos pads anymore a long time ago to try all these different materials and they all stop the cars but a lot of them as they age make a lot of noise now if you don't like the noise do this have them change the brake pads with acabono brake pads AKA Bono it's a Japanese company they make brake pads for lots of different cars they're acabono ceramic mcpads generally don't make any noise at all I put them on my own cars they never make any noise and they used to make lots of noise it's a simple fix but it doesn't mean anything if he says if you don't care even though it sounds horrible it's just that the brake pads are made out of a material that's actually a little too hard and it makes a noise when it gets hot like that but if you don't like it have them put a hecam on pads on the noise will go away then so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos remember to ring that Bell tonight [Music]

Channel: Scotty Kilmer

Views: 471,199

Keywords: auto, auto repair, car, car diy, car repair, cars, diy, how to, mechanic, repair, scotty kilmer, car review, how to drain power steering fluid, power steering fluid how to, power steering fluid, how to find power steering fluid, how to change steering fluid, should you change power steering fluid, power steering, power steering fluid location, power steering inspection, steering, no power steering, how to check power steering fluid, electronic power steering, power steering fix

Id: R8gpcCJUx40

Length: 10min 46sec (646 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 28 2022