A4.B5.DIY.Steering.PowerSteeringFlush
From QuattroWorld Wiki
Background
This writeup and the pictures refer to the 12v V6 found in the early A4 and the previous 80/90/Cabriolet. The 1.8T and 2.8 procedures are similar.
Steps
You have two choices of where to drain the system. You can:
- Suck out all the old fluid from the reservoir using a turkey baster, then disconnect the return line (the top one in the pictures) from the reservoir and feed it into your preferred recovery container (coke bottle, milk bottle, etc). If your reservoir looks like mine you are going to have to plug up the return port in the reservoir with something.
- If you don't have something to suck out all the old fluid and don't want to make a mess, remove the bottom engine cover if you have one (I don't on this car). Then remove the lower drivers side grill insert. Here you can disconnect the return line (the one that comes from the rack) from the power steering cooler. Place a drain pan underneath the hard metal line and let the reservoir drain. Once it is completely drained plug up the PS cooler and route the rubber line to your preferred recovery container. Please remember to disconnect the correct line (its the bottom one in the first pic below), if you don't then when you go to start the car you will make an awful mess underneath there. So to re-iterate you want to disconnect the line that is coming from the rack and not the one that runs up to the reservoir.
From here the instructions are the same. Start the car and allow the engine to run until oil is drained from reservoir which takes approx 6-8 seconds. Don't worry if pump starts to makes any noise, just don't attempt to turn your steering wheel while the car is running.
Now add the oil that's going to be your chosen full time hydraulic oil (I used only the Redline PS Fluid) and repeat the process twice or until 1 full liter/quart of the new oil has been flushed through your system.
Next re-connect the supply line and tighten the hose-clamp, fill the reservoir to full with the new hydraulic oil, and start car. Rotate steering wheel 3-4 times fully left-to-right. Shut off engine, check the fluid level, and top-off if necessary.
I did notice some metallic debris in my system this time, but it wasn't nearly as much as I noticed the first time I performed this flush 3 weeks ago. Here is a picture of the Mobil 1 ATF / Pentosin 11 mix after 3 weeks. Looks like it did a good job of cleaning out my system, the fluid didn't look as bad this time around.
A few personal comments:
I have noticed a night and day difference using the Redline PS fluid instead of the previous Mobil 1 ATF/Pentosin mix.
My pump is now quieter than it has ever been.
Big thank you to Mance (aka VAP) for all the research and help performing this flush and finding a superior replacement fluid.
Originally posted by CrazyCab
