I purchased 3 liters online from a dealership about a month ago. They have been sitting until my 4 new globes came in, and I had the time to replace and flush. I picked up an extra liter from a local dealership yesterday to have on hand just in case. That dealership told me there was a recall on fluid and that they only had 2 liters in stock. I called the out of town dealership that sent me the 3 liters to see if they knew about the recall and if there was a way to know if I got a bad batch. They didn't know anything about it... I guess I will just try to look at it to see if it is foggy or gelled. Any other thoughts on this?
Toyota Seems to be Acknowledging Bad AHC Fluid
- Thread starter SkiVT
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open a can of the old and a can of the new and put about a cup from each one into separate glass containers and see if there is any visual differences at least.
Any update to the potentially bad AHC fluid? It's running out of stock. Possibly because it's bad. It's now April. I wonder if this is new replacement stock running out or the remainder of the old bad stuff. I just bought a bunch of the bottles. How would I know? Have you guys heard anything? Batch number on the bottle somewhere? Thanks!
Did you buy 1qt plastic bottles or 2.5L metal cans?
1qt. plastic bottles. That's all the dealers around me had in stock. They said the build has been discontinued. That's hard to believe since it would leave all the LX470, LX570, and LC owners with no way to service their suspensions. Some of those cars I think are only a few years old(right??) My bottles were dated last summer which was before the November post that started this thread. Seems they could be the bad bottles.
My understanding is the part number in the plastic bottles is what has been discontinued. Most people these days have been ordering the metal cans, which used to be unobtanium in the USA before this whole debacle. If a dealer is still selling the plastic bottles, i wouldn't use it without checking the fluid in a clear bottle first. I'm not in the same opinion of not trusting the Plastic bottles at all, because for many years everyone used the plastic bottles without issue. It really seems there was just one production run of something wrong with either the bottles or the fluid that caused all the trouble. Saying all that, i ordered two new metal cans, and have no intention of buying anyone's plastic bottles at this point.
Where did you get the metal cans from? I’m hesitant to get them from eBay. Are they available from dealers? Thanks!
I got the metal cans from my local dealership a few months ago.
100 series are having same issues. The fluid is clearly fouled when you get some from the bad batch.
I asked one of the eBay sellers if their AHC fluid is from China. I didn't get any reply.
Is this "can" fluid unobtainium? The only thing my local dealer can get is the 1qt bottles and at my cost is still $40+/quart. They said they can't get the 2.5l cans
I owe you a 12 pack for that one, thanks!
They called Lexus this morning and can get the cans for $41. Already ordered from mcgeorge but ordered another from them anyway as I felt bad they did all that legwork for me. Also got some other service stuff I needed.
Any results? I picked up two cans two weeks ago and both a Lexus and a Toyota service advisor have told me the mechanic doesn't recommend flushing it because it can cause problems and in Toyotas case it won't be warrantee service and also... $450 in labor.
I found a nice writeup and was going to do it myself before coming across this thread. But since I have cans I still think I should be fine.
Did your ride quality change at all?
A little smoother but I also replaced the globes at the same time (all passed the pencil test though)
Would you not change the oil if they told you not to? This falls in around the same lines imo. It HAS to be serviced periodically
Lol. $450 in labor. Took me 45 minutes my 1st go at it.
Bought 2 metal 2.5l cans locally last week. Followed this 200-series AHC Fluid Replacement writeup, which is a modified version of PADDO's LX470 fluid replacement.
forum.ih8mud.com
I might have bled too much, because I did run into a "4-wheel Check AHC" error upon startup after bleeding. I did not introduce air into the system. The car thought I was still in 'N' height mode, despite bleeding each wheel down to the bump stop.
On the second startup, I hit the UP button to trigger the AHC pump (I don't have a techstream and thought I was forked). The pump initiated and took me up to 'Hi" mode*
*remember, the car was displaying 'N' despite me actually be in Low mode, so it took a while to raise up from 'Lo' to 'Hi' mode the first time. Now, all AHC processes are much faster + smoother. AHC doesn't lurch after coming to a stop at stop lights, and the ride quality is somewhat improved. I have replacement globes that will go in after our next roadtrip.
Here is a link to my full amateur-hour write-up
LX570 AHC “Basics” - Added as sticky thread for AHC Issues
Actually many Dealership will say don't flush it, you'll damage the system. They may very well say "sorry you messed up". How fat is your wallet $$$, before we replace the AHC system for you. This issue of not running when drained of fluid, IMHO is why many shops say we don't flush the 200 AHC...
forum.ih8mud.com
I might have bled too much, because I did run into a "4-wheel Check AHC" error upon startup after bleeding. I did not introduce air into the system. The car thought I was still in 'N' height mode, despite bleeding each wheel down to the bump stop.
On the second startup, I hit the UP button to trigger the AHC pump (I don't have a techstream and thought I was forked). The pump initiated and took me up to 'Hi" mode*
*remember, the car was displaying 'N' despite me actually be in Low mode, so it took a while to raise up from 'Lo' to 'Hi' mode the first time. Now, all AHC processes are much faster + smoother. AHC doesn't lurch after coming to a stop at stop lights, and the ride quality is somewhat improved. I have replacement globes that will go in after our next roadtrip.
Here is a link to my full amateur-hour write-up
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Checking in here to add a datapoint. I know there was some question of whether the bad fluid issue was an age/heat in a plastic bottle related thing. Here is a bottle I just emptied. It was about 18 months old (at least that’s how long I’ve had it) and been sitting in a shed in central Arkansas . It’s seen 10 degrees up to probably 120 degrees in my shed (mostly towards the latter) and it was still perfectly clear. Whatever happened to that batch it was specific to that batch of fluid.
