My 30k is coming up. I ordered the parts and supplies I needed from Sewell and was surprised to have 2 bottles of Toyota DOT 3 brake fluid show up. I thought it would use DOT 4. Anyone know for sure? Should I just ditch the the Toyota stuff for some ATE SuperBlue?

Andy

 

Do you plan to ever track the car? Do you drive twisties aggressively? Then get something with better boiling points like the ATE SuperBlue, Brembo LCF, Motul RBF600, etc.

For normal driving, you can stick with DOT 3, especially now that you already have it on hand.

 

if toyota recommends that..then trust it.

if you track your car more than "average" go for dot 4

 

I would love to track the car but realistically, I will be comutting and taking the kiddies to school with occasional back road spirited driving. So I suppose the Dot 3 will hold me over for now.

Any trick to flushing? Do I need to cycle the ABS system with a computer?

 

Oh, one more thing. I have 2 bottles, is that enough to flush?

 

ditto on the question above....

 

I was under the assumption that you need almost 4 bottles to flush

 

Car magazines beat the heck out of the brakes and I had never seen any complaints about brake fading on their reviews. I'm sure they didn't change the brake fluids before each test driving.

I think the brake ducts are designed for that purpose, keeping the brakes cool!!! DOT3 is good enough for me, track or no track.

 

I use Brembo LCF, never had a problem at the track. There is no reason to use DOT 4 in a system designed to work with DOT 3. I flushed with two bottles of LCF, now I just do routine maintenance - basically bleed until clear, then 10 extra pumps on each caliper.

No need to cycle the ABS with Techstream unless you introduce air into the system.

 

2 bottles will suffice. Despite many ppl's thoughts there is very little "flowing" of the brake fluid, meaning the fluid in the calipers tends to remain in the calipers for its life cycle. That is the main fluid body you want to get flushed out. There are MANY great manufactures of brake fluid, any of the major brands will work just fine, there are several brands which market DOT 3-4 fluid which is what we uses in our brake flushing equipment, we would sooner put better fluid in a vehicle than lessor quality/grade. Keep in mind that 99% of the ppl will NEVER get their vehicle to the point where SUPER GRADE fluid will become an issue of brake pedal preservation. My car is tracked quite a bit, and other than a occasional brake fluid flush after tracking several times I have NEVER had an issue. The track I frequent the most has two 135 to 140mph straights which require severe braking down to 60mph for one turn and to 40 mph for the other. when done the brakes are screaming hot, and have still never faded. I have found that biggest contributor to fade on our cars is on a wet track the stability control will be feverishly active, and this WILL over heat the brakes if left to it's own devices. After a few mild laps of learning the course SHUT IT OFF, You are here to learn to drive and handle the car, NOT have a computer do it for you! Hope this helps...

 

I'd say shut off the stability controls at the track no matter what. Even on a dry track they'll cook the brakes and give you a very false sense of control. It will also intervene at times making line choice very difficult.

AFA fluid choice - there is zero quality difference between DOT 3 and DOT 4. One is designed to be compatible with natural rubber seals (DOT 4), but functionally there is no difference in quality between the two fluid types. You can run DOT 4 in a system designed for DOT 3 without issues, but never run DOT 3 in a system requiring DOT 4.

And yes, it's very unlikely you'll ever even come close to needing a super fluid for street driving (of any kind) because it's almost impossible to get your brakes really hot on the street. At the track, your brakes will be hot in the first session if you're carrying any speed at all because there's usually not a lot of time between heavy braking events for the brakes to cool.

 

Are you doing this all yourself? I'm coming up on my 30k too, debating whether it's worth taking some time to tackle it on my own. Any other 30k items you're doing? Most of it looked like regular stuff I can do.

 

I'm at 50k and I've done everything myself. It's not hard if you understand what you are doing.

 

Follow up. I have more money than time these days ( with work travel and to young children) so I just sacked up and had the dealer do it. I showed up with 2 bottles of Toyota fluid (from Sewell) and they flushed with out charging me. I'm sure they use a system with it's own fluid and maybe used more than my 2 bottles.

 

the brake dot 3 fluid for the is f the same as the ones in the lexus is 350?