ATE Blue fluid - not for use on public highway?

[OldDuffer]

Thread revival. This is one of those half-wit urban myths that pings about the internet.

Fact: You dear reader do not use DOT brake-fluid. Never did, never will. DOT brake-fluid exists in a tamper-evident container. It does NOT - and cannot - exist in brakes. Read the regs, it's in the first paragraph. "Scope of the standard'.

Fact: Millions of gallons of DOT brake-fluid are manufactured every year. Not ONE drop gets used. Not one.

You do not have DOT brake-fluid in your brakes. You do have brake-fluid, and this brake-fluid will change.

You will not stop it going to seven shades of p*ss if you try. Thus... Brown fluid is fine, Pink is fine. Rust is fine. Your 20 year old beater has black soup, and it's fine. Every shade is fine. Dirty is fine.

Blue fluid is certainly fine.

Find the law that stops brake-fluid changing to dirty? While you're on... find the aliens that live under to the sea. Brake-fluid is legal.

What you cannot do is attempt to sell your striped brake-fluid as DOT brake-fluid. DOT brake-fluid ONLY exists behind the seal of a DOT compliant container. With its DOT label. It will be amber or clear - Section 5 of the standard.

Back in the day, ATE made an attempt to sell blue brake-fluid with a DOT label. The sticker was hogwash. Indeed the claim it was DOT brake-fluid was hogwash. It was blue.

Blue brake-fluid is fine. If it's your kink, use blue-fluid 'on the public highway'. Knock yourself out. Give it time, and copper lines, it'll go greenish blue anyway. However.... you can't sell it with a DOT label. Even as 'race' fluid.

The DOT standard is for manufacturers. Provided the blue brake-fluid in your brakes WAS DOT fluid you're legal. The fact that today, or next week it's black is irrelevant.

Read the regs.

========

there's a big notice on the container saying not for use on public roads - is this purely due to the colour? I wasn't aware of any other detrimental affects of it?

=======

The sticker is there to mind-f*ck buyers. Seems to work too.

Edited by OldDuffer on Saturday 22 October 09:12

[E-bmw]

Don't know if it is folk-lore or not but I was told the colour change was due to 'mericans complaining about the possibility of confusing coolant for brake fluid.

[OldDuffer]

[quote=E-bmw]Don't know if it is folk-lore or not but I was told the colour change was due to 'mericans complaining about the possibility of confusing coolant for brake fluid.[/quote

Can you run that by us one more time? The compliance for amber or clear is the to reduce confusion. It's not about colour/color-change. Quite the opposite.

The regs are sensible enough. If you'd written...

I was told the colour spec was to reduce the possibility of confusing coolant for brake fluid.

That'd be about right.

Edited by OldDuffer on Saturday 22 October 09:36

[Boggo]

- Dig's up 8 year old thread - god knows what he was looking for to find it

- Goes on and on about a load of nonsense that no one cares about, focusing on the absolute specifics of things that arn't relevant or worth talking about

- Doesn't actually know if the blue fluid is road legal in the UK after all

- Sh-t's on any further responses to the thread based on grammatical interpretation


God I hate forum's sometimes.

[OldDuffer]

Boggo said:

- Dig's up 8 year old thread - god knows what he was looking for to find it

I was looking for actual fact on this, I discovered the myth. Heaps of posts all over the internet, most read as this one. All mis-quoting the standard. Mostly removing context for when the standard applies.

Boggo said:

-
- Goes on and on about a load of nonsense that no one cares about, focusing on the absolute specifics of things that arn't relevant or worth talking about

Somebody cares, like me the OP wanted clarification on the law, not the myth. The specifics are relevant to establish the law.

Boggo said:

-

- Doesn't actually know if the blue fluid is road legal in the UK after all

I do, and if you read, you do. You did read the 'irrelevant' specifics, didn't you? It’s legal anywhere. Any colour is legal. If old, your existing fluid is likely brown. It'll be legal. How would you make used fluid illegal? It's all about the label. New blue fluid is legal. New blue fluid labelled DOT isn’t. It's blue.

Boggo said:

-

- Sh-t's on any further responses to the thread based on grammatical interpretation

Can you understand his jumbled-thinking? If so, explain it. It's this sort of half-baked logic that created the internet-myth. The brake-fluid we use isn't DOT fluid, and it's legal.

3/10 See me.

Edited by OldDuffer on Monday 24th October 12:35

[E-bmw]

OldDuffer said:

E-bmw said:

Don't know if it is folk-lore or not but I was told the colour change was due to 'mericans complaining about the possibility of confusing coolant for brake fluid.[/quote

Can you run that by us one more time? The compliance for amber or clear is the to reduce confusion. It's not about colour/color-change. Quite the opposite.

The regs are sensible enough. If you'd written...

I was told the colour spec was to reduce the possibility of confusing coolant for brake fluid.

That'd be about right.

Edited by OldDuffer on Saturday 22 October 09:36

I think you will find if you actually read my reply:

"The colour change was due to 'mericans complaining about the possibility of confusing coolant for brake fluid"

basically is just

"I was told the colour spec was to reduce the possibility of confusing coolant for brake fluid"

In my words rather than yours with the added clarification that I thought it was driven by the 'mericans as they needed someone to sue if they get it wrong.

[Boggo]

In theory, having blue brake fluid (regardless of it's original Dot specification) could be an MOT failure. As of 2018, 'Contaminated Brake Fluid' is a classed as a major defect. As the tester is not allowed to remove the cap, this is done by inspecting the colour of the fluid in the typically semi-transparent brake fluid reservoir. Blue fluid would give the appearance of it being contaminated, and thus the MOT tested would fail the MOT with a Major Defect. It is a european rule that we follow here in the uk that brake fluid should be clear/amber in colour, and that brake fluid reservoir's should be semi transparent to make inspection of fluid levels and contamination easy.


Yes, fluid does discolour, but when it is discoloured it means it is contaminated, which in turn means it will not perform correctly and could potentially be dangerous.

So no, it is not 'legal' in the UK for road use.

ATE sell exactly the same fluid as an amber fluid now - the blue was just a marketing thing that didn't really help in the real world. Any Blue fluid left is likely contaminated now (even if in a 'sealed' container) as it has not been manufactured for some years. So it wouldn't be worth using now regardless.



Grade - W (for WRONG!)

[carl_w]

Boggo said:

ATE sell exactly the same fluid as an amber fluid now - the blue was just a marketing thing that didn't really help in the real world. Any Blue fluid left is likely contaminated now (even if in a 'sealed' container) as it has not been manufactured for some years. So it wouldn't be worth using now regardless.

They always did. I thought the idea was that you swapped on each fluid change then when you see the "new" colour coming out of the bleed nipples you know all of the old is gone. This was more for race applications than road.

The new fluid is ATE Typ 200 and is only available in amber.

[dunc_sx]

carl_w said:

They always did. I thought the idea was that you swapped on each fluid change then when you see the "new" colour coming out of the bleed nipples you know all of the old is gone.

Yup, bule and red iirc. I liked it, seemed a good idea in my opinion. There are better fluids but it was fine for most race applications.

Dunc.

[OldDuffer]

Boggo said:

In theory, having blue brake fluid (regardless of it's original Dot specification) could be an MOT failure. As of 2018, 'Contaminated Brake Fluid' is a classed as a major defect. As the tester is not allowed to remove the cap, this is done by inspecting the colour of the fluid in the typically semi-transparent brake fluid reservoir. Blue fluid would give the appearance of it being contaminated, and thus the MOT tested would fail the MOT with a Major Defect. It is a european rule that we follow here in the uk that brake fluid should be clear/amber in colour, and that brake fluid reservoir's should be semi transparent to make inspection of fluid levels and contamination easy.

You do raise a strong point, yet digging into this; if as you say, we follow European rulings, we work to ISO 4925:2020. This says:

=================

4 Materials
On visual inspection, the fluid shall be clear and free of suspended matter, dirt and sediment. The
quality of the materials used shall be such that the resulting product conforms to the requirements
of this document and that uniformity of performance is ensured. Fluids may be dyed, provided no
confusion is possible between them and other types of fluids.

=================

Boggo said:

Yes, fluid does discolour, but when it is discoloured it means it is contaminated, which in turn means it will not perform correctly and could potentially be dangerous.

So no, it is not 'legal' in the UK for road use.

If we follow ISO 4925:2020 and it's blue, it can be a dye. But if we're 'merican we might be confused. If the MOT tester is 'merican, he may also be confused. Blue might be contaminated fluid, it might not. is it 'free of suspended matter, dirt and sediment.'? We don't know. If it is, and we tell the nice confused man at the MOT test station, it's dye he sees, it's all fine.

Boggo said:

Grade - W (for WRONG!)

Only before I give myself a fat Grade - R (for RIGHT) seems to me, all this is open to interpretation. And frankly the regs are so full of holes, we can make them read anyway we like. We buy DOT fluid, yet work under ISO?

In the real world brake-fluid is rarely changed, and is found all shades. It should fail MOT tests in this state, it rarely does. If you want Blue fluid have it blue, if you want brown, wait about a while and it will be. No one picks you up on this. The very fact that you're reading this, puts this reader way above most. It's doubtful you're the sort to confuse with washer-fluid. Hence do as you like, the regs are not aimed at you, and our prisons are not full of brake-fluid felons.

[Boggo]

OldDuffer said:

Only before I give myself a fat Grade - R (for RIGHT) seems to me, all this is open to interpretation. And frankly the regs are so full of holes, we can make them read anyway we like. We buy DOT fluid, yet work under ISO?

Let's just settle for C - for something else.

[OldDuffer]

Oh good, the insults fly, always a sign I'm winning.

No no, thank me later.

[Chunkychucky]

OldDuffer said:

Thread revival.

Do go ahead and save yourself the bother next time, won't you?

OldDuffer said:

This is one of those half-wit urban myths that pings about the internet.

Don't be too down on yourself, some of what you wrote made sense.

[Fonzey]

Best thread necro I've read in a while