I've got a 1992 mk2 golf gti 8v. My power steering reservoir cap is green, my fluid is red, I've been to halfords today and in their flip chart it says I need central hydraulic fluid CHF which is green. I'm not replacing it just topping it up as its just on minimum. Anyone know for sure what colour I should use and if its red, any particular make? Thanks
Personally I wouldn't mix the two colours. I used the green fluid which I purchased from my local vw dealer, should imagine gsf stock it to. I would be a bit wary of the red fluid that's in there incase someone has used ATF fluid in there which will damage the seals and potentially the pump and rack.
Mine has been leaking from the pump end of the feed hose for about two weeks now. It's going to the garage to make it better on Tuesday. From my research the 'green or red fluid' topic comes down to whether you have a green or red cap on your fluid reservoir. I'm sure Rubjonny will have the definitive say on this but it seems to go like this: red cap = red fluid, green cap = green fluid
That is normally the case but if you change to a ps pump that uses green fluid and your cap is red. Then you use green, if your pump is original then it will, as stated, be the colour of the cap.
I found this: Do not use ATF!!!! The seals in the Golf PAS system are designed to use a type of hydraulic oil - the red stuff will*perish the seals. The stuff you need is G 002 000 (Vw part number) and is a green colour. Most car parts shops do not sell the right stuff and will tell you to use ATF - ignore the spotty geeks. Not on a MK2, the system is designed to use ATF (Dexron II to be precise). Only later systems with the round, green capped P/S resevoir need to use the lighter mineral oil. So unless you have an MK3 system grafted on, or some freakishly late MK2 then ATF will be fine. The seals in the early system will work with the later thin mineral oil but due to the oil viscousity it's more likely to show up a weeping leak than the origional ATF. This is not my opinion it's fact.
Mine is a 17th January 1992, with a rectangle reservoir with a green cap. Is dexron II green? In my Haynes manual it says for post 89 cars it should be vw oil g 002 000, what colour is this?
Also when they say red stuff will the eat the seals, is that on all mk2s or early or late ones? My fluid is red.
Just got my car (1990 GTi 8v) back from the garage. Had to have the pump rebuilt with all new seals because it was that not the hose that was leaking. I asked the garage owner which fluid he used and he said RED Dexron II ATF. Red came out and red went back in.
as above my understanding is red cap = red fluid, green cap = green fluid. not so sure that atf will eat seals though, its designed to go in automatic gearboxes and im sure they wouldn't use anything that could eat rubber seals. possible i suppose, depending what the new type seals are made from. its worth noting the mk2 seals have been discontinued and replaced by a mk3 part and are listed right back to 1984 so I would imagine they are ATF safe it certainly wont damage the pump, i have a mk3 golf pas pump in my mk2 with mk2 rack & pipes and its been running ATF for years. as above though the green stuff is thinner so will show up any worn seals if you put it in an older mk2 which used to have ATF in it. the green stuff may even damage the older type seals? I'm no expert either way on atf, green fluid and old/new seals so I cant say for sure. if someone actually has first hand technical knowledge about what old/new seals are made from and if old/new fluid can damage them I'd be interested to hear it! After a bit of browsing on ElsaWin I found this: Fluid type: Up to 03.89 ATF, as of 04.89 hydraulic fluid -G 002 000- however dispite mention of renewing of oil seals when disassembling or reassembling, nothing is said about changing the type of fluid if a seal is renewed
