I changed the LMH in my 2l turbo (manual) slightly less than two years ago and it has already turned yellow. Is this some kind of record. I've done about 20,000 miles - mixed urban and motorway (lot of speed bumps round our way, mind). Can anyone top this? It never happened in my last one a 2l turbo auto which I had twice as long.

I found out when it started leaking at the join of the little vertical pipe behind the front wheel. To fix leak, I imagine I just push them together harder - or is there more science to it?

Hi jamieb

It sounds like your hydraulic system has a lot of sludge build up which has contaminated the lhm, you could do with some hydraflush in there for a while so that the system itself is cleaned out or further lhm changes will dirty very quickly.
It also depends how you changed the lhm, did you drop the car right down, depressurise and hard lock to the left then take the reservoir out clean filters etc etc or just siphon out the old lhm in the tank and then refill?

The pipe in the wheel arch is most likely to be the strut return pipe which has probably cracked, a short term fix is to cut the perished section out and push the rubber pipe back on, but new ones aren't expensive and it is a fairly easy job to do.

Dean

Thanks Dean. Fixed the pipe as you said. brilliant. Next I'll drain the system and make sure all the gunge is out of the tank. Is it dirt that changes the fluid's colour? A mechanic who mostly does older citroens told me only XMs have LHM-colour-changing properties. He thought it might be down to the fact that the fluid is worked harder in the system....

I'm not sure that xm's turn the lhm yellow more than any other cit of their age, but they do have one of the largest systems.
There are many posts in the hydraulic section about fluid changes and cleaning of the hydraulic circuit, including much discussion on hydracarnage and other cleaning agents that you will find useful so there is no point in me boring you to death by replying with a novel.
I would say that simply cleaning the tank and putting fresh lhm in will not 'cleanse' the system, you will just be pumping new oil through dirty components and you will end up back where you started, i would say , clean the tank and filters till they are like new with petrol and refill with a cleansing agent (15 quid from gsf for 5ltrs) that will break down the sludge and varnishing within the system so that after 3k or so you can put lhm back in and it should stay clean as a whistle.
Also yellow lhm indicates a very very dirty system so with a good clean you should see an improvement in overall system performance.

Good luck
D

Thanks Dean - I only saw this. I shall get down to giving the reservoir and filters a good clean.

Jamie