How To Check you Engine Fluids 2009-14 Ford F150
Created on: 2018-01-19
How to change your engine fluids on 12 Ford F150 pickup truck.
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step 1 :Checking the Oil
- Pull out the oil dipstick
- Clean off the oil dipstick
- Insert the oil dipstick
- Pull out the oil dipstick
- Check that the oil level is between the low and full marks
- Insert the oil dipstick
- Twist the oil fill cap off counterclockwise, to add oil
- Add oil as necessary
- Twist the oil cap on clockwise
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step 2 :Checking the Brake Fluid
- Twist the brake fluid reservoir cap off counterclockwise
- Check the brake fluid level, using a flashlight if necessary
- Check that the brake fluid is between the minimum and maximum lines
- Check that the brake fluid is clear or an almost yellow color
- If the brake fluid is murky or dark, drain and refill it
- Twist the brake fluid reservoir cap on clockwise
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step 3 :Checking the Coolant
- Wait for the engine to cool
- Twist the coolant reservoir cap off counterclockwise
- Check the coolant level, using a flashlight if necessary
- Remove the radiator cap with the engine cool
- Make sure the level is right at the top of the radiator
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step 4 :Checking the Transmission Fluid
- Raise and support the vehicle
- Remove the drain and fill plug with an integrated dipstick
- Use a scan tool to check the transmission fluid temperature
Tools needed
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Brake Fluid
Transmission Fluid
Anti-Freeze
Engine Oil
Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!
We're going to open our hood inside the vehicle, find the hood release right here. There's a secondary hood release under here, the safety. Have to lift up a little bit, reach your hand underneath, and push it that way. There's no prop rod. This has got hood struts.
Under the hood, we've got our brake fluid reservoir, coolant reservoir, air filter, mass air flow meter, the radiator's in the front here, the main fuse panel, the battery, washer fluid tank, and the vehicle's ECU sits right there. On the driver's side of the vehicle is your oil fill cap and the dipstick is down here to engine the engine oil. This F150 is equipped with electric power steering, so there's no need to check a fluid level; because it doesn't have any.
The transmission dipstick is actually on the side of the transmission, but the vehicle would have to be raised and supported before you can check the transmission fluid. To check your oil, down here in the dipstick it can be hard to reach because the trust is high, and the dipstick's way down in there. Going to pull it out and wipe it off with a rag. Put it back into the dipstick tube. Pull it out. We can see there, oil is right at the top circle or little hole in the dipstick. That's the full mark. If it was down here, it'd be low; but right here, it's full, so we don't need to add any oil. It's perfect. I'm going to put the dipstick back in. If we needed to add oil, we could open up this cap. It actually tells you the weight that it takes. Add your oil, then replace the cap.
It's easy to check your brake fluid level. The container is kind of a translucent. You can see that there is a minimum and maximum line. This one's just below the maximum line, so it's in good shape. We don't really need to add any fluid to this. If it was below the minimum, we'd need to add it or at minimum and bring it up to the maximum. But since it's just below, we'll leave it alone.
Right on the cap, it tells you the type of fluid you should use. If you need to add some, you just unscrew it, top it off, and put the cap back on. You should of course, always be careful with brake fluid. If you spill it, clean it up right away. It is caustic to paint and can ruin your finish on your vehicle. Try not to spill any and clean it up if you do spill it.
This is our coolant reservoir. On the side, there are two lines. You want to check this one when the vehicle is cold; because you should never open this cap when the vehicle is hot. The cooling system is under pressure. It could spray hot steam at you and burn you. I'm looking at the side here. This is sort of translucent, you can kind of see through it. It looks like the coolant is even below the lowest mark. It's not even at the high mark for cold, so I'm going to remove the cap. I'm going to add some coolant to it; the appropriate coolant. Put our funnel in here. We're using a 50/50 mix, so it's half water, half coolant. You can just see it.
Now it's just starting to come up to that low line. Filling up, I'm going to have to grab another bottle. You can see we brought it up to just between the two lines. I'm going to get some more coolant and fill it up to the top line. Perfect, right there. Now you can see the coolant level matches up with the cold line. This coolant is at perfect level. Hold on. Take your funnel out, and put the cap back in place.
To check the transmission fluid, you'd have to raise and support the vehicle to get the drain and fill plug here; that also has an integrated dipstick so you'd have to remove it from the transmission. However, you do need a scan tool to check the transmission fluid temperature to give you a correct fluid level.
Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1AAuto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.
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