twowheelsonly Posted November 25, 2009 Share Posted November 25, 2009 Hi, I am currently learning BMeer Maintenance 101, I want to flush my brake system and I know the manual states Dot 4 only, I have a Yamaha Venture and a couple of cars that are supposed to use Dot 3 or Dot 4 only as well, I changed my Venture when it was new and have 5 years now and 35000 miles using Synthetic brake fluid and the oil is still crystal clear and my brakes work good.. so anybody here changes to synthetic?? Thanks! for your input and all the help you have given me so far! Stewart Link to comment
Jerry Duke Posted November 25, 2009 Share Posted November 25, 2009 Hello again. I use any major brand name synthetic brake fluid that says compatible with DOT 3 or 4. I believe 5.0 is the silicone stuff to stay away from if you have ABS. There's a 5.1 out, but I don't know anything about it. Change it every year. Link to comment
twowheelsonly Posted November 25, 2009 Author Share Posted November 25, 2009 Appreciate the tip, I do have ABS so I will need to research this a little further, not sure why it would effect the ABS but I don't know either and will proceed with caution.. Thanks for your input! Link to comment
philbytx Posted November 25, 2009 Share Posted November 25, 2009 D0T 3/4 brake fluids are polyethylene glycol based and are, in essence, "synthetic". I use Ate Typ200 and SuperBlue for my BMW products (cage and 2 bikes). Ate is an OEM supplier to BMW and using those two products make iteasy Peasy to see when you have flushed out the old stuff on the changes as one colour (Typ200) is Gold and the other is Blue. Compatible products for our braking/clutch systems are DOT4 & DOT5.1, which is around but not so common. The DOT designations are based on dry/wet boiling points with DOT5.1 range being higher with most of the modern DOT4's being ABS system compatible. NOTE: DOT 5.0 is silicone based and MUST NOT BE USED in a polyethylene glycol (DOT 3/4/5.1) system. Link to comment
T__ Posted November 25, 2009 Share Posted November 25, 2009 Stewart, seeing as there is no real spec for SYNTHETIC brake fluid the synthetic part of the brake fluid you used is more of a marketing ploy than any real substance.. As Phil said just about any Dot 3/4/5.1 can be called synthetic as it isn’t found in natural state anywhere.. Use a QUALITY Dot 3 or 4 from a SEALED container & do your brake fluid changes on a low humidity day if possible.. If you really care about high wet/dry boiling point brake fluid just read the fact sheets on the fluids you are considering.. This isn’t a big deal if you live at low altitudes but can be a factor if you live or ride aggressively at higher altitudes as the boiling point is lower at altitude.. Years ago I was involved with a lot of high altitude brake testing (mainly trucks & trucks towing trailers) & we could boil standard Dot 3 with little effort at the top of Pikes Peak.. One of the better low cost standard brake fluids we tested was the OEM FoMoCo Dot 3.. Twisty Link to comment
David R Posted November 25, 2009 Share Posted November 25, 2009 The last time I was at an autoparts store to buy DOT 4 all they had was DOT 3 or 4 Marked 3/4 on the same bottle. I was assured the boiling point is the same as 4. makes sense to me. I understand some of the new cars are calling of DOT 4 also. Worth repeating. If you use DOT 5, you WILL LOOSE YOUR BRAKE$! Seen it David Link to comment
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