Originally Posted by Daekwan06

You can get the DOT4 & syringe thing both at Walmart. I also bought an aluminum turkey baster (plastic wont work) as I was told that would do the job much faster. All were pretty cheap, maybe $5 bucks a piece. And much cheaper than you'd pay the dealership to do it.

Originally Posted by child_of_fire

i contacted the department of transportation, the committee for which the brake fluid was named after, and they have not yet called me back. i suspect super dot 4 may have extra octane in it for faster shifting or something like that. that was what i found out through my research.

Originally Posted by JoesC5

Don't use the syringes found in the cooking dept. The brake fluid will react with the plastic and the syringe will disintegrate in your hands. In the automotive section, in the 2-cycle aisle, they have a mixing syringe that works perfect for doing the Ranger method.

EDIT: the one that Dave S mentions above.

Originally Posted by carl3989

Ranger also states that driving the vette will do the trick. Gee I wish we could make Ranger's post a sticky or some way of getting this info out to all vette owners. It is a little known problem that left uncorrected can have dire cosequences.

Originally Posted by carl3989

Ranger also states that driving the vette will do the trick. Gee I wish we could make Ranger's post a sticky or some way of getting this info out to all vette owners. It is a little known problem that left uncorrected can have dire cosequences.

Originally Posted by diverman

After reading Carl3989's post on the need to change fluid on a regular basis I thought I should check mine. Pretty black and just two years, thanks carl3989. So I check the manual regarding type of fluid and head off to the parts store. No one has heard of "Super DOT4 brake fluid". One store had DOT4 but all the other had a DOT3-4 multi grade. I wound up buying Valvoline DOT3-4 synthetic. Can any one tell me if this is the right stuff before I put it in and screw something up?Thanks

Originally Posted by BEZ06

That's absolutely correct!!!

The DOT used to have specs for DOT 3, 4, and 5. The DOT specs have requirements for dry and wet boiling points, viscosity, high temp stability, corrosion characteristics, effects on seals, and a number of things as well.

DOT 3 and 4 stuff is generally formulated with a glycol ether base, with the DOT 4 having more borate esters added in to raise the boiling temps.

DOT 5 had higher boiling point specs, but it's a silicone based fluid that is not compatible with the DOT 3/4 fluids, and it's slight compressibility makes it totally unacceptable for use in modern high performance ABS cars.

A number of years ago a bunch of mainly foreign car manufacturers wanted a higher boiling point fluid compatible with DOT 3/4 fluids, and the fluid providers came up with stuff they called Super DOT 4, or DOT 4 Plus.

When DOT came out with a spec for glycol ether based fluids with boiling points as high as the silicone based DOT 5, they designated the spec DOT 5.1.

Super DOT 4, DOT 4 Plus, and DOT 5.1 are all essentially the same, with the two higher rated DOT 4's just produced before the DOT came out with the 5.1 spec.

You can find a lot of Super DOT 4 fluids: BG, Bel Ray, Castrol Response, Pentosin (which I suspect is what is actually the stuff that is relabeled and sold as GM Super DOT 4), and many others.

There are also a number of DOT 5.1 fluids that have been formulated since the official DOT 5.1 spec came out, otherwise they would probably be called Super DOT 4 or DOT 4 Plus: AP DOT 5.1, Motul DOT 5.1, etc.

So.....I think it's perfectly acceptable to consider most Super DOT 4 or DOT 4 Plus fluids to be essentially the same as most DOT 5.1 fluids. That's what the StopTech site White Paper tech bulletin on fluids used to say. I reviewed it and it's been changed so that reference is no longer in there.

Of course you can check out the fluid manufacturer's specs and compare them To the DOT specs. Many racing brake fluids that just call themselves DOT 4 easily meet the DOT 5.1 specs.

Just MHO, YMMV!!

Bob

Originally Posted by ETID

I bought the GM Super DOT 4 and it says Super DOT 4 on the can. I thought that the Super part was just for effect but apparently not. Cost is no more than the others.