Colour is just dye. As much as I'm tempted to mock you, I shall decline the fabulous offer. Most commercial chemical products are dyed. Even our petrol. Usually so you can tell what it is though. In this case, just a brands choice(I'm fairly certain if it is dot 4).Hi guys,
I went out to buiy standard DOT4 as I was told (like mentioned above!!!) any brand fluid will do, just the type ie DOT4 or DOT 5.1 etc has to be right.
I bought some Shell DOT 4, and it was blue!!! I'm like what da F*** I've neva seen blue brake fluid, has always been the yellow greenish colour.
I was told it doesn't matter. It is just so that when you completely change your fluid, it is easier to tell if it has been completely changed if you switch from yellow/green to blue and them back when you do your next change.
I didn't want to put or mix funny blue fluid with the standard color though, kinda felt strange, so I got more standard colour DOT4.
What do you guys think? Would you mix it? Wouldn't you feel strange if you opened your brakes and found partly yellow and partly blue fluid???
I don't know the exact reasoning behind it, and people mix fluids in road cars to little if any detriment, race cars however are a different story. Any mixed fluid or bad quality fluid will usually result in the pedal not feeling as good as it did at the start of the day. However, it's recommended not to mix. It might be that certain brands have different additives and some may clash? Not sure. But if you're using it to extreme and the fluids maximum potential, it could be the difference between a solid lever at the end of a run and a soft lever.Hey No skid marks,
that was my point. It is just dyed. So really it doesn't matter a single bit what colour it is. So you'd mix different colour brake fluid, provided it was the same type then?
@Muvro why would you not mix brands? As long as it is the same type. DOT 4 from Castrol should e the same as DOT4 from Shell.
If I open up a brake, I don't generally know what brand the original owner put in it... right?
Avid, Hayes, Hope and Formula all use DOT 3, DOT4 or DOT5.1, all of which are interchangeable - fwiw, DOT5.1 is said to be the "highest performance" in terms of boiling point, but DOT 4 is in my experience the easiest to get the air bubbles out of as it has a slightly different viscosity. You can use standard automotive DOT 3/4/5.1 in any of these brakes.
All Shimano, Magura (and I think Tektro) brakes use mineral oil. Use only the respective manufacturer's brake fluids for these brakes, as "mineral oil" is loosely defined compared to DOT fluid, and the boiling points, hygroscopic capacity etc vary significantly between one oil and another.
Do NOT under ANY circumstances put DOT fluid in a brake designed for mineral oil or vice versa - you will write all the seals off!