How to Check Power Steering Fluid Level 2010-14 Subaru Outback

Hey, friends. It's Len here at 1-A Auto. Today we're working on a 2013 Subaru Outback. We're going to be checking the power steering fluid. It's going to be very simple; I want to be the guy who shows you how to do it. If you need any parts or instructional videos, you can always check us out at 1aauto.com. So here we go.

This is our power steering reservoir. We'll notice there's a whole bunch of lines and a whole bunch of words. We've got cold min, hot min, cold max, hot max. The vehicle's been sitting for a while. I would consider it to be in the cold condition. So we want to check the cold max line. As you can tell, it's right up to it's line, so that's perfect. If we ran it for a while and it was nice and hot, we'd want it to be up to that yellow line where it says hot max.

If you did have to fill it, all you would do is you would take a nice clean rag. You're going to clean off your cap. Try to get off the majority of the dirt so nothing falls down into your reservoir. We're going to turn it to the left, until it stops. Then we're just going to wiggle it around a little bit, see if we can lift it up. It is sealed, so the seal is doing it's job, it's holding on. Just going to clean this off. We're going to check our little gasket in there, the seal. Make sure it's not cracked or swollen or falling out or missing. If it's missing you've definitely got a problem. We don't want it to be any of that because if water gets in here, we're going to have an issue.

If you needed to add, you would just put it right through here. You can use a little funnel or even if you have good aim. Pour it in. And for this particular application it says you can use just regular ATF transmission fluid. So there's nothing special about that. Once you do have it filled to the proper line, whether it's hot or cold, go by the proper line. We're just going to take it. We're going to line up this tab and that tab with this slot and that slot, push it down, give it a little twist to the right, clean it off again, and you're good to go.

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