Note to Self: Don't put Power Steering Fluid in the Master Brake Reservoir...

[DarkFury]

Man... self inflicted wounds are the worst. But yet a lesson was learned.

My RAM 1500 had been making alot of squealing/grinding noises for the past few weeks... so I figured it was low on power steering fluid.

Well, it turns out that I had a leaking hose to the Power Steering that was causing this (which I didn't know I had before today). About a week ago, I attempted to put more power steering fluid in the truck... however everything under the hood was very greasy. I added the fluid to what I thought was the P/S opening, but it turned out to be the brakes. The tech at the dealership showed me where the P/S cap was and it was covered in grime so I totally missed it (that'll teach me to try to add fluid in the dark... since I couldn't see very well that night I did the deed.)

The Service tech said that if it had been the other way around (adding brake fluid to the P/S... I probably woulda been ok for the most part, however the P/S fluid in the brake would contaminate and possible swell the seals of my brakes which could lead to catastrophic failure...)

So more or less, a $90 brake line flush and refill and I'm back in business (as the P/S hose leak was fixed under warranty).

First thing I did when I got the truck back home: I got a sharpie and wrote "Brake Fluid" on the side of the brake reservoir so I'll never make that mistake again. :D

Sometimes... you just have to sit back and laugh at yourself for stuff you do trying to fix stuff but only making it worse. :hehehmm:

[kimchicowboy]

man, i was waiting for an expensive fix. glad it wasn't an exorbitant price to flush the brake line and luckily nothing worse than that. :)

[DarkFury]

Only because it was caught early (since I put the fluid in last week....)

However, had I let that P/S fluid stay in there for a few months, the tech said that I would have gradually lost braking ability and could have possibly had complete brake failure due to a swelling of the seals. Replacing the entire brake system would have been WAY more costly....

The funny thing is... I have friends that "hear weird noises" coming from their vehicles and they just totally ignore it like it will just "go away" on its own. Ultimately causing more damage than just having it checked out (for fear of having to pay someone to fix it.)

Since I depend on my vehicles... I'm pretty quick to jump on issues I see happening so that probably saved me a few hundred dollars in the long run.

[renovation]

DarkFury
I'm glad to see you got away that easy .
this last week i have had to replace the rear wheel bearings on my 2002 Saturn fwd. man the dealer wanted $328.00 each for just the parts. the auto parts store was $145.00 each 90 warranty. and schrams the GM parts re-cycler was $55.00 each 90 day warranty or $65.00 each for life time . as it turned out we had to do the drivers side twice as the first one came in being bad. i did the lifetime warranty units . these are not all the ruff to replace if you have a car lift .but i sure hate to have to do them on your back in a driveway.using a jack as you have to beat them out of a housing . with air power tools takes like 15 mins to 1 hour a side depending. on how hard it is to remove the rear brake drums and hammer the bearing free.

[nate el bueno]

Ha- last week my team pulled an engine out of a HMMWV and on the reinstall, we filled the crank with water. Needless to say, the next class had a perfect example of what NOT to do.

[mcs328]

Lucky. That was a low cost fix. I thought it would be more too.

[Markel]

At one time my old Saab 99 was leaking some antifreeze, so I instructed my wife on how to fill the reservoir tank before driving the car. When she called me after doing it, I figured out that she had filled the brake fluid reservoir with antifreeze. (Note: on the 99, the radiator reservoir was all the way up near the firewall.) I took it in for a brake flush, but that's all it needed.

[Devhux]

At least these were on your own vehicles!

While working at a full-serve gas station many years ago, I accidentally poured antifreeze into the oil reservoir of a customer's vehicle (somehow not cluing in that oil is "certainly not green").

Yes, I did inform my boss immediately (before the customer even finished fueling), and I guess I was lucky that the customer understood it was a mistake. At least we got the issue rectified, and I learned a valuable lesson in the process.

[DarkFury]

Probably the most common auto fluid mistake is pouring anti-freeze in the windshield washer reservoir or vice versa.

Thing about anti freeze in the oil is... you can pretty much clear that with an oil change and possibly a power flush. The oil drain plug is easily accessible. But with some of the other fluids you more or less have to take it to the dealer so that they can beat the crap out of you with their $85 per hour service fees since they don't have such "user friendly" draining ports/methods.

[Napoleon54]

I used to work at a marina. We had a guy pump several gallons of gas into a customer's rod holder before someone noticed it.