Bleeding Brakes...9mm Bleeder...seriously?
 

just venting primarily....

I went to bleed my brakes the other day using my fancy new home made one-man bleeder, got the car jacked up, filled the bleeder with new fluid, took the front wheels off only to find that the bleeder nipple is a 9mm variety. Come on, seriously? Has anyone tried finding a six-sided 9mm wrench - good luck unless you buy a whole set. Are 8mm, 10mm, or even 11mm not good enough options???? Argghhh.

Anyhow for the record for anyone looking to do this, 9mm is what you need. Do not attempt it with a 12-sided 9mm wrench. You run the risk of stripping the bleeder.

Hi Iv'e noticed that they are using odd and unusual sizes all around these days . I recently had to buy a 18mm socket to strip out my suspension . !8mm doesn't sound like a strange size but most socket sets seem to have 15mm, 16mm 17mm 19mm and omit the occasional size like 18mm . You could normally get by with using an AF size when the metric wasn't available but nothing seems to fit the 18mm apart from ...............an 18mm socket. Some one in marketing thinks we will go buy a special "Volvo" spanner at a ridiculously inflated price . Have a look on e-bay single 9mm combination spanner available at not a lot of money , at least in the UK.

As a follow-up: it turns out that the front bleeders are 9mm and the rears are 11mm!!!