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Just completed this. I cycled through about 3 water bottles worth of fluid or about 50 oz. The first couple of times, the fluid came out very dark and had a burnt smell to it. As I cycled more, the smell went away and while the fluid is still a bit dark, when you pour it out into another bottle, it lightens up and looks closer to the fresh (bright red) fluid going in. The bulk of the fluid is in the lines as the reservoir hardly holds any fluid at all. I was simply removing the fluid, adding fresh fluid, then cranking the wheel back and forth numerous times in my driveway, then repeating the process.
On my next oil change, I'll probably pull another 16 oz out or so and see how it is doing.
This isn't the fastest way, but it is probably the cleanest way as you really don't have to worry about making a mess!
Going to revisit this in the next few weeks. I just did my ES330 and disconnected the return line and used a 3/8th barb and some clear tubing and was able to quickly cycle the old fluid out. Made a huge improvement on the ES330 (did both of the reservoir hoses also due to age/cracks). Will document it when I do it and post here of course.
So, I attempted to pull the return hose off of the reservoir... no go. At 118k it was pretty cooked and not very pliable. I used a pick on the sides and it still wouldn't do it. I'm sure I could have tried to force it but I didn't want to risk breaking the nipple off. I may just get a new hose and do a relief cut to get it off. I did get all of the fluid out of the reservoir and refilled it. When I did this last year it seemed to do a good job but the fluid today was a bit dark and had no cherry red color to it at all. FWIW, I couldn't get the return hose off my ES330's reservoir without doing a relief cut to the hose.
to pull fluid out of the reservoir, makes it easy.
the foam ear plug works (even to my surprise). I also have a rubber conical stopper (from home depot) where I got the clear hose... I have used both with success to plug the reservoir nipple.
Not sure what fluid I'm using yet... leaning towards trying this amsoil in the quart easy pack so I don't need to buy another funnel and have it sitting around.
I just sucked out the NASTY and I mean NASTY fluid. Burnt smell as previously mentioned and dirty. My 2016 has 51k miles, and the smell of the PS Fluid was worse than when I drained the ATF from this 2016 for the first time at 45k miles.
In the above video, my reservoir was stained from the old fluid, but I could see the fluid level was between the MAX/MIN cold lines before sucking it out.. My garage is 50 degrees.
After sucking out the old stuff, I just filled a small plastic cup with about 4oz of fluid, but my total fill was close to 6 oz. Will drive once and then repeat.
The opening is very small and now understand why some items might not work.
The syringe I linked above fits inside the PS reservoir with clearance... also if one can't get their return line off (to flush the system), just do the same procedure and after turning the wheel back and forth a couple times, siphon out the PS reservoir (with the syringe or tool of choice) and keep refilling and repeating... (you could use the ATF spreadsheet to figure out how many times to do it get the fluid concentration to the desired level (depending how much is able to siphon out of the reservoir)
Assuming the return line cannot be removed and using the same fluid concentration calculator that was used for ATF drain and fills.. it would take roughly 15 PS siphon, refill, rotate wheel, and repeat cycles to get the system close to all new fluid assuming 6oz can be pulled from the reservoir each time... that's roughly 3 qts to do it this way...more time consuming, but still cheap.
Removing the return line would likely only need 2 qts of fluid (you'd have extra) and less cycles of the wheel rotation to push the new fluid out while maintaining the reservoir topped off throughout the process.
I've decided to do the PS fluid flush every 2 years when I do the transmission service. It is inexpensive and keeps the vehicle operating at peak performance with new fluid.
With the burnt smell and crusty reservoirs, I'm gonna start researching a power steering cooler to see what is feasible, if anything with the oem design and routing.
This kit appears it will work after crawling underneath for a closer look... will require to drill 2 holes for the front mounting bracket bolts... and of course dispose of the OEM metal fluid path across the front, which I think is suppose to serve as a cooler.
Not sure how I feel about making such a major subsystem alteration while still in warranty... I'll likely just flush every 2 years, even though more cooling capacity would be nice...
06-30-18, 08:37 AM
