Saturday, April 6, 2013

Low Brake fluid level in the Brake Fluid Reservoir

Theres no such thing as a free meal. Well If you wondered why this blog didnt have any updates, don't worry  - Im about to start making more entries - which in my case is not necessarily a good thing !

I noticed the other day that my brake fluid level was a little on the low end in the reservoir.  There are  MAX and MIN lines in the brake fluid reservoir, , so if you see the fluid hitting the MIN line, its recommended that you top it off. Here's what the reservoir looks like (not my own picture)

Now brake fluid is toxic, so its recommended that you wear gloves or something protective when handling the fluid. For Nissan Rogue, you should grab a DOT-3 heavy duty brake fluid. I bought a "Nissan genuine" DOT -3 heavy duty brake fluid off of amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AKYOOTO/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Now here's where I state something that I still don't understand. The car engine compartment is a deep area. You can drop things in it and its hard to retrieve it because its compact and filled with tubes and other mechanical parts. So why don't car manufacturers create caps which lanyards that attach to the containers they fit on?

Anyways i guess you can see where this is going. I took the cap off, filled up the brak fluid to the MAX line, and i was handling the cap with a heavy glove (i dont have any decent ones)...and BAM. the cap fell right into the engine compartment.

Now have a look at this picture. Does it seem like someone with large forearms could get their hand through to the bottom of that and pick up a small cap?


So i fiddled around with a hanger for a bit, failed, and then i stuck my hand down behind the brake reservoir (located top right in this picture in white)...and somehow pulled out the cap. I was sweatin bullets there for a bit though, cos for a second i thought i wouldnt be able to drive around at all!

So that was that, my brake refilling experience. Lessons:

1) get a good glove
2) Get Nissan DOT-3 heavy duty brake fluid or something similar
3) Try not to drop the reservoir cap cos picking it back up is a real pain in the ass
4) makes me feel iffy about the other caps and whether i should get something to tie those down so even if i take them off, they'll just hang and wont drop down.

So then I started the engine to see how we were doing .. all seemed fine. Then i put the car into Reverse and lifted my foot off the brake.. ...and lo and behold... the damn VDC OFF and SLIP lights came on:







Another blog post about that issue.

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