OK, I am part way through my own 30K service I want to replace my brake fluid; how much do I need? I have been told 3 bottles, and I have been told I need only 1. Also, how much coolant conditioner do I need? The stuff is cheap, but no sense in wasting it.
You need 1 bottle of conditioner at this point. Brake fluid depends on how much is in the container you buy...and how far you want to go. a COMPLETE flush (bleed at all 4 wheels until you get new fluid) on a normal subaru (2 pot front, 1 pot rear) takes about .5L. 4 pot fronts with 2 pot rear take about .75L, and the Brembo cars (STi/EVO) usually take a whole litre to get it right.
Thanks guys! I really appreciate the help, because I am only doing it myself so that I may learn about the car. I respect the professionals who can do this stuff and do it EASILY. I would rather just pay someone and have it done, but then I wouldn't learn how my car works, and that's no fun!
I think I had led you to the 3 bottles in a post last week. I can elaborate on my experience a bit more. I bought my car a couple of months ago- '02 wagon- with 61K and the 60K had not been done. When buying parts for the service, the parts guy recommended 3 bottles, so I went with that. I was flushing the system (did not have any air I knew about), so I altered the sequence from the proper order just a bit - RF, LR, RR, LF - to make it easier with ramps (I crawled under rather than taking wheels off). The previous owner must have had this done recently, because I have always heard you can tell when you cleared a line of the old fluid because the color changed. It did not in my case. I just went through about 1/2-3/4 of a bottle for each wheel (a bit more on the first one). No issues other than that. If I were doing it again, I would use a jack and take the wheels off. That would make it easier for sure. Also, be careful when refilling the reservior (sp?) I used a funnel and it had a tendancy to back up.