First time posting here, I did come to this forum a while back before I bought my truck. Its great, really good threads with some awesome info.

Little backround: I bought this 2004 Ram 4 door from a lady last year around the same time. The truck was in really good condition and I was sold instantly especially for the price I got it for.

So around a month after owning it it started leaking PS fluid, found out after checking this forum that there is a pretty common thing with the clamps not providing a good grip on the lines. That was exactly the problem.

Today I backed outta the parking spot to find that the PS went bye bye completely. Checked the ground where it happened sure enough red fluid all over the place. Boo that noise! So I grabbed a flash light and to my surprise I found this.


Notice anything odd?


After turning the wheels back and fourth found that the fluid is mainly shooting outta the dust boots for the rack.




So my main question is this...WTF is with this green fluid?

I have a theory going to this. I take my truck to Jiffy Lube for the oil changes, they have always done a really nice job and even taken me down to look under the truck at suspect things sometimes. So I am thinking that mistakenly they put in antifreeze in the PS resevoir. Any thoughts on this. I did some research on green PS fluid and found that some places use Mineral Oil that will have a green tinge. But I tasted this stuff and its pretty sweet, meaning that it surely is antifreeze. I am kinda stumped any insight would be great.

Even if I am completely retarded and this is a common practice to use green PS please tell me now.

Oh and here is a shot of the resevoir after about a 1.5 quarts of clear chrysler recommend PS fluid.


Thanks guys!

Jonathan

 

looks like a teenage mutant ninja turtle climbed up under your hood for warmth and went squish when you started it!

oh man, sorry i couldnt resist. i dont know what to tell ya, but that surely doesnt look right. i would start asking questions at the jiffy lube though. even if they didnt put it there youd think they would have noticed that green stuff in there.

 

well i have a 04 as well and it leaks like a dying animal and the noise is bad and it only happens in the winter but i put lucas stop leak in and nothing changed i dont know what the put in but sure does look like antifreeze some complete dummy must have done it

 

I worked at Jiffy Lube like 10yrs ago, but I do remember that every fluid used comes from an over head line that had a small gas pump style handle. It is very possible they put in coolant to "top off" your resevoir. I would go in there and Calmly say to them that you were recently in for service and the gentleman told you that they topped off all your fluids including your Power steering fluid. Then tell them that you have been having a problem so you looked into it and your fluid just doesn't look right. It's green and not red and that you think they mistakenly put collant in there and that it ruined your pump. By telling them that they infact topped off your fluids as a courtesy lets them think you def had it done. If you ask them if they topped off your fluids after you told them the problem they will deny deny deny. Just walk in there and tell them they made a mistake and I bet they will fix your problem. I worked there for maybe 6months and we ended up paying for 2 engine replacements. One for no oil and another for the filter came off because the guy down below never cleaned off the old o-ring that stuck to the oil adaptor plate.

 

Thanks for the replies, it does indeed look like some TMNT slim got up in there.

The last oil change was about 3K ago so I feel a little left in the dark as I have had issues with quick change places before. I know the deny deny deny comments pretty well with these places. Instead of getting my blood pressure up, I am just going to bite the bullet on this and replace the Rack and hopefully flush the system out.

My little brother used to work at a Jiffy Lube as well so I can understand the over the head lines issue thats why I am thinking this is what happened. I am also trying to find the recipt indicating they topped off the PS fluid.

Again thanks for the responses at least I know for sure now that this aint right.

 

i thought you sid you had red fluid all over the ground when the P/S went, then why the green fluid all over?

 

Well good luck, hope yours is better than mine. My PS went to **** last night while I was in Edmonton, so after looking around for about an hour to find some fluid to fill up the resevoir (it was after midnight, so **** all was open, and I had to drive back to Vegreville which is 100km out of the city). Anyways, after filling up the resevoir, the PS was still all ****ed up, but I drove back anyways. This morning I drove it to the stealership and dropped it off. They called me this afternoon and told me that the problem was my rack assembly, and would cost about $1400 parts and labour.

Needless to say I was pretty pissed, not to mention I had been ripped off by this dealership before. So I went in to talk to the tech personally. He said that he brought it into the shop, put some fluid in the PS resevoir since it was empty. He started it up and tried to fiddle with the wheel to diagnose the problem, and heard a bang. So he shut it off, popped the hood, and there was PS fluid all over the engine bay. The rack blew the seals right off and sprayed fluid everywhere.

So, just the part is over $800, plus three hours labour, and since its a steering component, needs an alignment after. Came to just under $1400 bucks all told.

****.

 

I am sure that you don't find it at all funny but i couldn't help but laugh as i read your story...but there is no doubt that is antifreeze because there is no oil that is sweet even mineral oil. You may be able to save sa lot of money if you can just find the seal to replace in the rack instead of buying a whole new one.

 

That sure looks like antifreeze to me. But what about Smokey's point...you said its first failure resulted in red PS fluid everywhere? I'd figure if they topped it with coolant, it would be some sort of muddy red-green mix...that shot of your reservoir seems to fit the description.

I'd go talk to JiffyLube before you bite it on the cost of a new rack; no need to work up the blood pressure. Might save a few hundo.

Somewhat unrelated, my highschool ride was a '99 Windstar (laugh it up...the 3.8L motor is a beast ), and blew back-to-back-to-back PS racks; it was the rack seals every single time. Serious pain in the ***.

 

Yea the whole red to green thing had me baffled to. My guess is that the antifreeze sat on top of the oil, and while all the oil leaked out the next to go was the top stuff. I really don't have a good answer for this. As I did see red fluid in the snow, but to my suprised what the photos show is what I found directly after ther incident.

I am going to put a reman rack in it. $175 my cost through some connections, and I will be putting the MOOG tie rod ends on that rack. So total in parts will be $275 plus fluid of course. I am told to use ATF-4 I did some quick research on here and looks like some people are using that as well. My pops and I will throw it in hopefully Friday. And yes i'll have to get an alignment done soon after that.

Hopefully when we put the rack in I can investigate the green stuff some more to see exactly what happend. Thanks for all the posts guys!