Power Steering Fluid - Red or Green

[patja]

This age old question. I have a 06 Focus and currently have brown power steering fluid! Ive taken some out to try decipher what colour it is (was!) but I have no idea. 

 

Thing is, I have a very, very small leak and I want to try some of the Leak Stop stuff. I know, I know. But it's an 06 and only has a couple of years left. I understand that Leak Stop only works on the red power steering fluid, not the green hydraulic fluid. 

Ideally I'd confirm it's red. Change it for new stuff and add the Leak Stop. If it works, great. 

But is there anyway I could confirm what colour fluid I have? I tried the Ford garage and they can't confirm. 

 

I did notice in another thread that JW1982 said Ford changed from red to green during production of the Mk2.5. That would seem to indicate that mine (Mk2) should be red. 

[patja]

Or another question. Would it be disastrous to change as much as I can to red regardless? 

[TomsFocus]

If it's a small petrol with mechanical PAS then it was almost certainly red.  The green was meant to be used with EHPAS although I have seen red in those as well.

This question gets asked repeatedly but I never have seen any concrete proof of which cars had which colour and when the exact changeover was!

[patja]

Here's a pic, for what it's worth. It's brown, which probably looks closer to red naturally, so I'm not sure if that means anything.  Maybe those in the business would know? 

[ferretfloozy]

that looks red to me .. if it was green then it would have turned black .. i have a 2007 with mechanical pas.. i've always used red .. as it had red  in the reservoir when i first bought it new

[patja]

Thanks ferretfloozy. 

It looks very dark in the bottle, and unfortunately shows zero sign of red or green!  

[Botus]

6 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

If it's a small petrol with mechanical PAS then it was almost certainly red.  The green was meant to be used with EHPAS although I have seen red in those as well.

This question gets asked repeatedly but I never have seen any concrete proof of which cars had which colour and when the exact changeover was!

that's wrong

ALL Mk2s should use green just like the handbook says

it was some lazy factories using up stock of old rubbish.... the red overheats and deteriorates, increasing wear in the pump and rack

it comes from a change in the rules on recycling where the manu remains responsible for clearing up the mess at end of life, hence they went to small reservoirs and the accountants took off the PAS cooler.  Hence Red could no longer cope and green fluid took over

you can run either but red goes black and wears things out whilst green stays fresh as a daisy

 

this pic from above shows Red fluid plus all metal from the damaged pump as its been running red rubbish

 

 

 

[patja]

13 minutes ago, Botus said:

that's wrong

ALL Mk2s should use green just like the handbook says

it was some lazy factories using up stock of old rubbish.... the red overheats and deteriorates, increasing wear in the pump and rack

it comes from a change in the rules on recycling where the manu remains responsible for clearing up the mess at end of life, hence they went to small reservoirs and the accountants took off the PAS cooler.  Hence Red could no longer cope and green fluid took over

you can run either but red goes black and wears things out whilst green stays fresh as a daisy

 

this pic from above shows Red fluid plus all metal from the damaged pump as its been running red rubbish

 

 

 

Thanks Botus. 👍 It sure is rubbish whatever is in there! 

An old friend was told by a doctor not to stop smoking as a change at that age could kill him. I think I'll take a similar approach here and feed it some fresh red rubbish! 

 

 

[Botus]

why do you think the parts place, the ford garage and the handbook say Green....  what's with people wanting to wreck their car not using green ?

you can run 50 50 the car and the seals won't care or you can be a grown up and dump the rubbish in the reservoir and flush the junk out inside 20 mins with nothing more than a bit of garden hose to suck out the crap and topping up then turning the wheel from lock to lock a few times

[patja]

The car has had red in it for it's whole life, 15 years. As mentioned above there is a very small leak somewhere and I would like to try the Power Steering Leak Stop which works with red, not green. It's not an ideal fix of course but if it stops it for a couple of years, as it has done for others, I'll be very happy. 

I also understand that red is more viscous than green and therefore less likely to expose leak points. 

The car has a couple of years left before it will prove more costly to run than it's worth. I'm open to correction on all the above but taking it all into account I don't think putting red in is the worst decision in the world here. 

 

 

[Botus]

yes and its grey sludge full of iron fillings desperately trying to finish off the pump and rip the seals in the rack.  

or you could fill it with what its supposed to have, the pump the rack will be far happier and last a bit longer than they will on red and the fluid won't deteriorate

replace the stupid spring clips on the reservoir with proper jubilee clips just nipped up a bit more than the leaking spring clips manage

note early pre 2008 cars fracture the high pressure pipe as it goes in the pump... a redesigned pipe has a strengthening bracket to stop vibration causing a stress fracture

 

[ferretfloozy]

i'm still not convinced .. if it was  ford using up old stock then there would have been a bulletin advising it to be changed when next serviced .. the red/ green have different weights so they would have been for different climates engine size etc .. also the red seals would be different to the green seals so it might have something to do with which manufacturer of steering rack/ pump is used .. mine left the factory with red so its always had red .. it goes dark due to temperature ( too much full lock )..not because its contaminated .. are you saying that new engine oil that has gone black after 1000 miles is now full of iron deposits .. even chip fat goes dark when it gets hot

[Botus]

do you really think Ford would publish your owners manual wrong and destroy all the cars, when had that been the wrong information, the cheap fix would be a run of 2 quid manuals with the right data, rather than a PAS pump a steering rack and 3hrs labour?

they fact they didn't and their systems still say use green tells you what exactly ?

[Botus]

I ran mine with red till it went grey and nasty and the pipe fractured.....

replaced the pipes and used red, it went grey inside 12 months, replaced with green and now its fresh clean green fluid for the last 4 years

 

GREEN is designed for the small reservoir low capacity system fitted at the factory to the Mk2

RED is only suitable for OLD cars with a massive fluid capacity and a huge PAS cooler, neither an element of your car

Ford wouldn't go back and change it, that would cost money ! and the warranty was only 12 months. Ford's job is to sell cars not make them last...