How to Check Power Steering Fluid Level 2006-12 Nissan Altima

Hey, everyone--it's Len from 1A Auto. Today I'm going to be showing you something very simple. We're going to be checking our power steering fluid on a 2010 Nissan Altima. It's going to be very simple. We're just going to walk over here, and we're going to put on our safety glasses, because safety first at 1A Auto. This would be your power steering reservoir, there's a couple things that you want to take note of. First of all you want to know what kind of fluid you're going to need in case you do have to add. You want to add the manufacturer's specified fluid.

You're also going to want to note that there's different lines here. It's very simple to read. There's a cold level, and there's a hot level. Cold if the vehicle's been sitting around for a while, everything's nice and cool. Hot, maybe you just went for a nice road test, you went to the beach, whatever you might have been doing, you want to check it afterwards. It's going to be up here. So you've got a minimum line, you've got a maximum line. Simple to understand. The vehicle's cold right now so we'll go by the cold levels. Minimum, maximum, it's right at the level.

If it was low all you would do is you would take this cap, turn it to the left counterclockwise and remove it. Of course you want to make sure that it's clean all around it, if you have a lot of gunk and debris. Just try to clean that off first. We're going to lift it up, and you can look right inside. Once you look inside, and you determine if you need to add fluid or not, you can look at your gaskets. Make sure that those are in good condition and by good condition I mean they're clean, they're not cracked, they're not swollen. This looks perfectly fine--fluid's full.

Now we can go ahead and put this back on. If you do happen to notice a little bit of dirt up along here, you can use something such as a rag. Never use your bare fingers. You don't want to get any type of chemicals on your skin. I'm just going to go ahead and put this back on. There's little tabs. They are going to line up with these holes. Just clip it in, turn it. You can feel that it's not turning any further. Clean up any excess fluid or whatever you might have spilled, and now we've completed checking our power steering fluid.

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