What happens is the water can get into the system. The fluid may not absorb the
water, but it can react with it. this will change the chemical make up of the
brake fluid. It can also react with the metal in the system. Both result in
oxidation of any material in contact with any water in the air (humidity) and
cause them to break down. Just look at a bare piece of metal not exposed to the
rain... it will eventually rust from moisture in the air. But changing the
fluid you essentially flush out the oxidized fluid and put new unreacted fluid.
This give you a "fresh set of downs" and you can have the water react again with
the fluid before it reacts with the metal in the system. So do you want it to
react with the fluid (can change easily) or with the metal components of your
brake system (difficult and expensive to change) ...


John W




________________________________
From: Tad <tadc@...>
To: VW-TDI@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 4:36:00 PM
Subject: Re: [VW-TDI] Re: 05 TDI how long do TDIs last?


Kent, could you summarize what you meant to get across with your article?
That water absorbtion isn't the culprit, but rather copper ions? That we
should buy those test strips? Isn't our fluid (DOT4) supposed to be
non-hygroscopic anyway?

On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 10:09 AM, Kent Christensen <lkchris@osogrande.
com>wrote:

> re: The fluid slowly accumulates water, which will do bad things to
> brake components. (Shawn)
>
>
> Some learning for you, then. See ...
>
> http://www.babcox. com/editorial/ bf/bf50412. htm
>
> Kent Christensen
> Albuquerque
> '03 New Beetle TDI, '06 E320CDI, '07 GL320CDI
>
>
>
>
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