Besides a person physically pouring it in, is it possible for it to happen naturally?

Because this happened to my girlfriend's car and now she's stuck with a $3,300 repair and a week with no car. Every rubber component of her brake system got contaminated and swelled up. And her brakes function on and off (which is the reason why she can't even drive it out of the lot). Is there any other logical explanation of how this happened?

 

I can't think of any possible way, other than someone poured it in. The brake hydraulic lines don't inter-connect with anything.

There's a small vent in the reservoir, but it's kinda like a pinhole under the lip of the cap. I think if you poured a quart of motor oil over the closed reservoir cap, hardly any would get in.

 

No. Someone definately screwed up. Regular DOT 3 brake fluid is alcohol based. DOT 4 is silicone based. They are not compatible, and are definately NOT petroleum based

P

 

DOT 3, DOT 4, & DOT 5.1 are poly-glycol. DOT 5 is silicone, and that's the one that is incompatible.

 

Thanks Jim for that clarification, it's been a while since i've done a silicone conversion; and the DOT numbers game was getting exhausting. I do remember what a "B......" it was to bleed the system if you got air into it......

P

 

We had an Accord and a Passport come in for soft pedal problems 2 weeks apart. They both had similar problems except they had it in the ABS system as well. $5500 for the accord and $6200 for the Passport. I was looking through their previous service records from other facilities and found that they had both had oil changes at the same quicklube place about 4 days apart. Same tech on both cars. Quicklube joint paid both bills.

 

her car was serviced at her honda dealer and they absolutely claim that none of their technicians can make such a mistake.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Shinbo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">her car was serviced at her honda dealer and they absolutely claim that none of their technicians can make such a mistake.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Well it have to have gotten in there somewhere. Is the car under warranty? Normally that wouldn't have been covered but if its the dealer mistake they should do something for you.

If the car is older non abs this might be something you can take on yourself.

 

they said that this can't be corrected through the warranty because it's not a defect. they're not even claiming responsibility for it (well we have no evidence of it other than just an assumption). Well we decided to not worry about and just get the **** fixed. i haggled the price down to $2200 from $3300 and the maintence, so I guess the best thing is to just try and forget about it.

thanks for all of you guy's help though. i appreciate the feedbacks.