I recently purchased a three year old VW Passat from the main VW main dealer. They carried out the three year service as part of the purchase contract. When I studied the service schedule the brake fluid change was ticked not changed! This should have been changed! I contacted the dealer and they said that they had not changed it because it had been changed at a pervious service, a quick check of the service schedule proved this not to be true. The car has just completed 30,000 miles so there would not have been a reason to change it earlier.

Following further discussions I was told that they would do it free of charge next time the car was in?

I explained that I would be travelling for the next six days and after reading the warnings in the service schedule the car was dangerous. They agreed!, but then rang back to say they had re-checked all the records and yes the fluid had been changed and the record just marked incorrectly.

My question is how can I tell if the fluid is new or three years old?