I just had my 996 power steering system flushed. I got charged $132.50 at $26.50 per unit for power steering fluid. Does anyone know if there is really 5 litres of capacity in the power steering system, including the lines and reservoir. This is the first time with this shop and I am wondering if they are over charging me.

 

The amount of fluid required to flush is more than the nominal capacity of the system.

 

So you are saying that five litres to flush is reasonable. I guess that makes sense but just wish it wasn't so expensive.

 

$132 was a reasonable price. As mentioned they use more than the capasity to ensure all used fluid is removed. And don't forget there is a labor cost factor in there

 

Power steering fluid flush is not a common service

I've never had the power steering system fluid flushed before so I have no direct experience. When I asked the techs about having this done to my cars they said it is not needed and a bit of work to flush the old fluid out. There is no real fluid drain plug so fresh fluid has to be used to actually flush the old fluid out.

IIRC the technique was to siphon out as much old fluid a possible then refill with fresh and start and run the engine to circulate the fluid. Then repeat as often as necessary until the fluid in the tank was suitably clear and fresh looking.

(The power steering lines are left connected to avoid disturbing these and having them leak.)

For my Turbo I think the fluid capacity is a bit over 2 liters.

So, 5 liters to do this "flush" sounds about right but that is just a WAG on my part.

You should have gotten a quote beforehand and made up your mind then, before having the service done, if the price was reasonable. To question the cost of the service afterwards is a bit late.

 

The problem is that the power steering hose was leaking badly. It was a Sunday so I could not go to the local Porsche dealer to add fluid so I added the best ATF that Checker Autoparts had. I figured that they were going to replace the hose which would require the draining of the whole power steering system that they would not have to really flush. There would be a minor amount that would be stuck in the system, so I thought that the flush would be easy.

I also thought that they could use a cheap cleaning fluid for the flush and not use $25 per litre mineral fluid. I think that I am going to ask the shop why 5 litres when unlike a normal flush, the system was open because of the removal of the hose that needed replacement.

 

Well, the system does not lend itself to a drain. The fluid in the rack is rather trapped and won't run out on its own I suspect.

Also you added the wrong fluid. This contaminated the power steering fluid that was there.

In this case then the shop used 5 liters to flush the system not only of the old power steering fluid but also to remove the last dregs of the fluid contaminated now with ATF.

Had you not added ATF, then a straight flush of just old but otherwise ok power steering fluid could have required less fluid than 5 liters.

I mean is it like an oil change. All of the old oil is not removed. Just most of it. That a bit remains is not enough to affect the performance of the new oil.

But if this oil were contaminated with something the oil would then be drained -- after running the engine some -- and refilled with fresh oil. This would ensure that enough of whatever contaminate was in the engine oil in the first place was removed or reduced to the level it would do no harm.

The same applies to the power steering fluid. With just old fluid there that some remains is not significant. So maybe just 2 liters would have sufficed.

But in your car's case you added ATF. Now to do the job right as much as of the old power steering fluid/ATF blend had to be removed as the shop deemed reasonable.

My WAG is there is no cheap cleaning fluid available that can be used in place of the power steering fluid.

Remember the engine has to be run to circulate the fluid through the system. The only fluid the factory believes should be used in the power steering system is Pentosin. In this case it was the flushing fluid.

And it took 5 liters to effect a suitable flushing of the power steering hydraulic system.

You can of course complain, object if you want to.

IMHO it does not read like you got taken advantage of for 5 liters of fluid. It reads like the shop did a good job considering the hydraulic system was contaminated and it did what it had to what it thought it had to do, to remove the contaminated fluid.

 

Thank you for your opinion. I screwed up and guess I wanted someone else to blame.