Just had this in an email from CRC

Dear CRC Customer,

Finish Line has informed us that some of their bottles contain the wrong brake fluid.Please check to see if the bottle has a clear side window as illustrated in the attached image. If your bottle/s has a clear side window please send a photograph of the bottle together with your CRC Ref number, name and address. We will refund your purchase of this product.

IMPORTANT
When you have sent us these details:
1. Please empty the bottle and dispose of the contents as directed by your local authority.
2. If you have used the oil for your bike then have the brakes bled completely, cleaned and checked by an approved cycle mechanic.

If your bottle does not have a clear window you can carry on using it.

Don’t know if it affects only bottles sent via CRC or a whole batch.

Just so you know.

It’s all finish line bottles. A friend of mine works In a bike shop and he bled a pair of elixirs with said fluid and destroyed them. If you have a new ish bottle of fluid take or send it back. If you put mineral through a system expecting dot. It will bugger your brake up good an proper!

Quite surprised a professional mechanic wouldn’t tell the difference tbh… mineral oil and dot fluid handle, look and smell different.

Do you really think that Shimano and Magura mineral is naturally that colour? As for smell, I’ve bled hundreds of brakes over the years and can’t say I’ve noticed the smell of any oil. Maybe if it smelled of Tri Flow I’d notice!

Feels different but if your wearing nitrile gloves which i should hope you are handling dot or mineral oil then you wont notice

If you get non shimano or royal blood mineral oil it looks the same

As for smell – do you walk around sniffing the stuff ?

Be interesting to see what happens here then – will finishline be paying for brakes ruined ?

I remember a bike shop locally put mineral fluid into a customer ( whos on here ) hope mini ……what an awful brake that became ……..i had to sort the mess

I don’t see how finishline have any other choice. If they’ve put the wrong stuff in the bottle its clear cut who is responsible. This is what product liability insurance is for.

As brakes are pretty critical and it’s labour intensive to flush brakes and replace seals and lines, I can see a number of people getting new brakes out of this.

trail_rat – Member

As for smell – do you walk around sniffing the stuff ?

Yup!

I mean, no! But they’ve got distinctive smells. I’ve always used un-dyed brake fluid, it doesn’t look the same as fresh dot either. And the viscosity’s pretty different too, it’s noticable when you degas the fluid (and since it’s Avid he’d have drawn it into the syringe which would make all that more obvious.

I would have noticed there was something wrong, but I guess not everyone would.

actually this is wrong i dealt with one of the 1st cases of this in the UK and was the shop that fishers accused of bleeding with the wrong oil. fishers got back to us after some tech and said that there was amounts of suspension oil found in the finish line dot fluid. it has gone through a fair amount of brakes all ready, it was not mineral in a dot fluid bottle, its pretty easy to tell the difference from the smell and feel

I can tell the difference between most stuff by smell and also feel. But then I work with chemicals daily and have a slight OCD about knowing the chemical composition of stuff. 😀

Its easy to tell the difference by taste….

Uh oh..I’ve received one of these letters unfortunately. Does anyone know what they have replaced the right oil with?

I have absolutely no idea how to go about getting this sorted what if its damaged my brakes completely, I fear since i live in NewZealand this is going to be a real drama to get sorted out.

Anyone got any advice? Should i be contacting someone from finish line about replacing my brakes if they have given me mineral oil for my formula the one brakes?

Any help would be much appreciated!!

PS. I brought the brakes online from the states and the finish line oil via Chain reactions as its an absolute drama to find formula brakes here.