What brand of Power Steering fluid

[willrev]

I need to take my ZF power steering pump off and replace its seals.

I looked at old posts, but no one said what brand or type of fluid they used. I picked up a used pump at the yard and was going to swap them out and send mine off to have the seals put in at the local hydraulic shop.

What brand of fluid? Is there any difference? I looked everywhere for Castrol PS fluid and found none. Not at WalMart, Advance, Auto Zone, no where! I assume the Febi would be expenisve.

[willrev]

Found this site doing a search for ps pumps.
Decent prices for rebuilt

http://mbpumps.com/index.html

[Cateaux]

I replaced the filter and flushed & filled with Castrol sythetic (bought at Advance) about six months ago. It did a great job of cleaning out the system...especially the gunk in the return hose that was preventing it from leaking . I replaced the leaking hose, filter (I figure the old one was full of gunk from my freshly cleaned system), and refilled with fresh Castrol last week. The P/S works exceptionally smoothly, and the fluid is so clean that I can clearly see the filter at the bottom of the reservoir.

[odie]

I think it might call for ATF?

[Kestas]

This might help:

MB Approved Service Products

The last time I flushed my power steering pump, I think I used some Chevron ATF...

[Scott98]

Read this thread:

Power Steering Oil, what type?

[TomJ]

Since "ATF" ain't what "ATF" was (was just ATF and the lubricity closely matched that of dedicated PS fluid, now you can't find "ATF", but ATF-+, Mercon, Dexron, etc.) So...., to answer your question, what I use in my own vehicles is Febi/Bilstein stuff in the Blue Bottle (called steering gear fluid)

Also, when I flush a customers P/S system, I use Valvoline synthetic P/S fluid. Both seem to work fine.

[willrev]

Thanks everyone. The links really helped. I will try to find some Castrol synthetic PS fluid locally.

[Diesel Giant]

Lucas!

[Hatterasguy]

I got a quart of the official stuff from the dealer for $10, it is redish.

[Veloce300DT]

Same here.. used the "Mercedes-Benz" brand fluid.

[Hatterasguy]

When I first got my car I flushed the fluid and changed the filter, I used the Febi stuff, it seems to be thicker and it looks like clean engine oil. But my PS pump would always whine on cold days when I first started the car. I didn't pay much attention to it old cars make noise. A few months ago I changed the steering box and flushed the fluid because the used box had dirty fluid in it, I used the MB stuff. Now the MB stuff is pretty thin and red, different then Febi. Now with the MB fluid no more whine in the morning from my PS pump and the steering seems to feel smoother.