Power steering fluid

I'm embarrassed to ask this, but I must be having a "senior moment" or something cause I can't remember....so:

Can I safely use tranny fluid (Dexron III) to fill my XJ PS reservoir??

No reason why not - that's all I use. Havent' had any trouble yet...

5-90

That's what I thought, but I was having a brain cramp... The manual asks for "Power Steering fluid" rather than Dexron II/III, and in a VW I had, you could ONLY use 100% mineral oil - tranny fluid would result in a very expensive repair.

Thanks!

Just for courisoitys sake some VWs, Audis, and Hondas do require special fluid, and the hondas are differnet than the German build.

POWER STEERING FLUID ONLY is printed on the reservoir caps for both my Jeep and Saturn.

So... I'm gonna recommend POWER STEERING FLUID ONLY

Yeah - Honda has always seemed to require special PS fluid, but this is the first VW I've had that did ('98 Passat B5). In the end, I still had to replace the rack on that POS with only 70K miles on it, so I guess paying $25 for a litre of "special" PS fluid wasn't worth it.

Where in Novi are ya? I hail from Antigonish originally.... Not many of us on the forum...

I think that its neat that theres more than one NSian on the fourm. We are in Coldbrook (outside Kentville). Gotta love the Anappolis Valley! Trails (and pits) glaore. BTW 89limited is tchase's other half, this is currently kim(89limited).
weve got a 89 Prelude 4WS at the shop that has a bad ps pump and leakey rack. We were putting the honda stuff in it untill we realized that it wasnt getting fixed soon. So now theres cheap tranny fluid and a bottle of lucas in it. It still works great. However i denfently dont recomend adding tranny fluid to a honda. Idont know what it does, but all of the repairs on it get parts at cost and free labour. And 4WS repairs can be expenive
oh BTW what lead you down there?
kim

I use Mopar PS fluid from reading this:

http://go.jeep-xj.info/HowtoService.htm

tchase said:

oh BTW what lead you down there?
kim

Click to expand...

I was dragged down as a teen...not much to do about it. :dunno:

When I used Dexron in mine, it howled and buzzed like crazy, and took a double flush with PS fluid before it quieted down again. It might have been because I had just replaced the steering gear with a used one, and perhaps it needed some flushing anyway, but I'm sticking to PS fluid.

Tony this time:
I've generally used PS fluid whenever it was feasible, however on a vehicle with a major leak this can get a bit pricey. When I was in college I had a '69 Barracuda with a major leak,being a poor student with a car that wasn't the easiest to get parts for it wasn't cost effective to put PS fluid in it. It was a 2 hour drive between shcool and home (came home most weekends) and if I filled it before I left it was empty by the halfway point. Eventually I simply stopped putting fluid in it, it had a huge steering wheel so you didn't really miss the assist. I drove it that way for a year and everyone said the pump would be ruined. Then the car went into storage for several years. When it came back out we re-filled it just for fun. Not only did the pump still work, but the leak was gone! System worked fine for several more years before the steering box started leaking again. The steering box has since been replaced but that old pump still works perfectly.
I'm sure that old system wasn't as picky as some of the newer ones and I'm not saying you should use tranny fluid but in a case where you're going through a tonne of the stuff it can be an alternative.