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Updated October 2026

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What this covers Brake fluid is the unusual one The other four are caught by percentages So the formula decides the package, again And the fill neck decides the spout What we can and cannot tell you Read the regulation, not the summary References

If you are bottling brake fluid, coolant, washer concentrate or an additive, every one of the five has a federal rule pointed at it.

What this covers

Brake fluid, engine coolant, windshield washer concentrate, fuel additives and oil additives. All five are thin liquids poured into a fill neck, which is why the catalog groups them, and all five answer to different law, which is why this property is organized the way it is.

Brake fluid is the unusual one

Its container, its closure, its inner seal and the exact words on its label are written into a motor vehicle safety standard. There is no other product in this library where a regulation specifies the cap, and that is what the first section is about.

The other four are caught by percentages

Ethylene glycol at 10 percent, methanol at 4 percent, hydrocarbons at 10 percent under a viscosity limit. Cross one and the product needs child-resistant packaging, specific label words, or both. These are arithmetic on your own formula sheet.

So the formula decides the package, again

Which is the same shape as the diffuser property, in a far more dangerous category. A coolant at 9 percent glycol and one at 11 percent are different regulatory objects wearing the same bottle.

And the fill neck decides the spout

Everything here is poured into a reservoir, often at an angle, often by somebody in a hurry. A spouted closure is a usability feature and a spill-prevention one, and 11 of the 169 closures on this shelf are spouted.

What we can and cannot tell you

We publish the material, the neck finish and the liner on every closure, and 67 of the 169 here carry a heat-induction-seal liner. We cannot certify a package as meeting a standard: that is testing, and it belongs to the closure supplier and to you.

Read the regulation, not the summary

These rules are short, specific and quotable, which is why this property quotes them. Every page names its source so you can open the clause rather than take a paraphrase on trust.

References

49 CFR 571.116, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 116, Motor vehicle brake fluids. S5.2.1 requires every container of 177 mL or more to have a resealable closure with an inner seal impervious to the fluid and a tamper-proof feature destroyed or substantially altered on first opening. law.cornell.edu

16 CFR 1700.14, Substances requiring special packaging. Paragraph (a)(8) covers methanol at 4 percent or more by weight; (a)(11) ethylene glycol at 10 percent or more; (a)(31) nonemulsion liquid household chemical products at 10 percent or more hydrocarbons by weight under 100 SUS at 100 F. law.cornell.edu

16 CFR 1500.14, Products requiring special labeling. Paragraph (b)(2) requires "warning" and "Harmful or fatal if swallowed" for 10 percent or more ethylene glycol; (b)(3)(ii) requires "danger", "Harmful or fatal if swallowed" and "Call physician immediately" for 10 percent or more petroleum distillates, because they may be aspirated into the lungs. law.cornell.edu

Written from federal regulation and from measured catalog data, not from a blending bench. We sell containers and closures; whether a particular closure satisfies a particular clause is a question about that closure and its supplier’s testing, and nothing here certifies a package as compliant. Anything on these pages is a starting point.