IphtashuFitz comments on New Cars Don't All Come With Dipsticks Anymore, Here's Why

Brake fluid is hygroscopic and will accumulate water over time despite being in a nominally sealed system. Water in solution with brake fluid noticeably lowers the boiling point which leads to issues under repeated braking (e.g. down long steep hills) as the fluid boiling means you lose braking capacity in that circuit.

You should ideally be changing the brake fluid every few years (2-3 being the typical recommendation) and that applies even if the brakes are used less often.

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[–] CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Seems like 60k miles for brake fluid replacement and 80k miles for low conductivity coolant replacement. Then also replace the normal coolant at 120k miles. This is for an Ioniq5.

I feel like most electric cars don’t need to use brakes going downhill. The regen is heavy enough to maintain a reasonable speed.

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[–] lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 year ago

True, and ICE cars don't need to use brakes on long hills either. Use your transmission; that's why they put those manual shift features into the car

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[+] seralth@lemmy.world 1 point 1 year ago

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[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

You can use DOT 5.1 to significantly increase that wet boiling point, but it's expensive for normal car use. I usually use it in my motorcycle, since I've experienced brake fade on that before, and it's... Not fun.

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