How Do I Check or Add Brake Fluid to My Car or Truck

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Hi, I'm Mike Green. I'm one of the owners of 1A Auto. I want to help you save time and money repairing or maintaining your vehicle. I'm going to use my 20-plus years experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1AAuto.com. The right parts installed correctly: that's going to save you time and money. Thank you and enjoy the video.

In this video, we'll be showing you how to check the brake fluid on this Ford Explorer. This is pretty much similar to any vehicle. With brake fluid, you always want to look for yeah, this is your brake booster, and this is your brake master cylinder, and this is commonly what they look like. This one has a twist-off cap, okay?

You can see in the brake reservoir there, the fluid reservoir. Some cars will have just caps that have clips or whatever. On most newer cars it's pretty easy. You can see the reservoir.

You basically just want to make sure that you have fluid in here. Some vehicles will have a minimum and a maximum line that you want to make sure that you fill it between. Which I think that's what that line is right there, is the maximum fill line. It's okay to have it a little bit lower than the maximum. And yes, that's what it says. You can barely see it, but it does say, "max" right there. There's probably a minimum. Yeah, that's the minimum line down there.

Make sure that that fluid is between those two. Very important to have your brake fluid up to the right level, for obvious reasons. If you don't have your brake fluid up to the right level, you might not have brakes. Brake fluid, usually on the cap it will say. And it does say right down here, .3 compliant fluid. So when you go to buy the brake fluid, you need to make sure it's .3. There are two common types, .3 and .5. And most vehicles are .3.

We hope this video helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Please feel free to call us toll-free, 888-844-3393. We're the company that's here for you on the Internet and in person.