DOT 5 Brake Fluid
 

On a Suzuki SV650s K3, can i replace the front and rear fluid with DOT 5. Or would it potentially cause issues?

Re: DOT 5 Brake Fluid
 

Probably cause issues, and why do you want to?

How often are you boiling the brakes to require fancy fluid? If a lot, what's wrong with them and/or why are you holding the brakes on down the straights?

Standard car shop cheapie DOT 4 is absolutely adequate for 99.9% of users. Some racers get it hot enough to actually benefit from super fancy tenner a litre race fluid.

More important is to service the thing so they're working properly rather than try fix a problem by throwing money in wrong place.

DOT5 may be bad, 5.1 is more friendly and compatible with stuff. I say DOT 4 works fine.

Re: DOT 5 Brake Fluid
 

Dot 5 is silicone based (unlike dot3/4), it will work in the SV system, but the most important thing it to completely flush and drain the system if it's been filled with DOT 4, as the two don't work together, a point to note is some ABS system components aren't compatable.

Cheers Mark.

Re: DOT 5 Brake Fluid
 

It's not a change through my riding at all. I have a bottle of it in the garage and thought i would see if it was a compatible fluid.
I will stick with DOT 4 and replace the fluids
Cheers for your inputs and replies

Re: DOT 5 Brake Fluid
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOT_4
make sure you know if it's DOT 5 or 5.1, one is silicone and one is glycol based (as are 3 and 4). You can't mix different types but you can mix with the same type. As said above no need for silicone on the road.