Hi, I'm new to the forum. I noticed a whining noise when I accelerated and when I turned left or right. It got worse within a couple of days. I always have an oil change and top the fluids every 5,000 miles and I'm over that by 200 miles. I looked under the hood and the reservoir was almost bone dry. I checked under the engine and on the ground and did not see any noticeable leaks. I knew I couldn't drive it, so I went onto amazon and did a search for Mopar Power Steering +4 fluid. This one bottle came up and I really didn't think much of it. I poured some into the reservoir and noticed it was clear. I tried searching hydraulic power steering fluid and really couldn't find whether it was bad to use that on my 2017 Journey. I ended up going to auto zone who told me a comparable replacement was the Castrol ATF Transmax +4 by Castrol. The guy there told me to take a turkey baster and take out as much of the hydraulic P.S. fluid and then turn the wheel to the left and to the right and whatever fluid was in the lines would dump back into the reservoir that I could remove before adding the Transmax. So my question is, was the Hydraulic Power Steering Fluid bad for the vehicle, 2nd can transmission fluid be used to replace the power steering fluid and 3rd, where the heck did all that power steering fluid go if there's no visible signs of a leak when just 5,000 miles previous, the Dodge dealership would have topped off all the fluids? Thank you.
