Clutch Fluid

my BRAKE light came on the other day. checked the reservoir and it was about half way between the min and max levels. added some light went away.


HOWEVER, the clutch fluid reservoir was/is like completely empty! i only drive the car about 3 miles a week and haven't noticed anything with the clutch but she's bone dry.

i popped the top and the inside of the reservoir is pretty dirty looking. also, the little bit of fluid at the bottom of the reservoir looked kinda dirty.

i'm new to these cars and have never really been a DIYer.


should i just clean up the inside of the reservoir and top it off or would you suggest a whole clutch system flush?? why or why not?

thanks a lot guys! i appreciate any and all help.

p.s. i don't have TONS of money to throw at this right now so if topping it off is fine for now, i'd like to hear that instead of just, "Ahhh, go get it flushed." that would be ideal but i can't necessarily do that right now. plus, it's getting stored in a few weeks. thanks.

I can conclusively say that I don't have anything conclusive to say...

Ideally you should flush the clutch fluid when in doubt because hydrolic fluid is hydrophilic and will suck the water out of the air which will then boil off when the clutch fluid gets warm and cause bubbles in the lines (which cause other problems).

But if you have a leak then it becomes a rather pointless exercise since the fluid will leak out anyways...

If you are jammed for cash I would top it off and then make sure the car remains "drivable" and then keep an eye on the level to see if it's leaking over the next couple weeks... If it's disappearing then it's definitely a leak... If it's remaining at the same level it might be the "transmission fluid grimlens" which people sometimes encounter where the level all of a sudden drops for no apparent reason (no joke, this happened to a few people on this forum... including me) and then flush the hydraulic fluid.

If you are jammed for cash I would top it off and then make sure the car remains "drivable" and then keep an eye on the level to see if it's leaking over the next couple weeks... If it's disappearing then it's definitely a leak... If it's remaining at the same level it might be the "transmission fluid grimlens" which people sometimes encounter where the level all of a sudden drops for no apparent reason (no joke, this happened to a few people on this forum... including me) and then flush the hydraulic fluid.

Those gremlins might be the fluid seeping past the slave cylinder seal and into the slave cylinder boot. All the 3S's i've owned had fluid in the slave boot where it shouldn't be. Which means it's on it's way out, as I discovered last week when mine blew out, easy fix though.

Cleaning the resevoir won't do much of anything to be honest, a flush would be the only effective thing you could do. If you aren't having problems just top it off and keep an eye on it, I have a feeling your slave cylinder might be the culprit.