I’ve never had a rusting brake line problem with my GM vehicles. I had a 1998 Regal that lasted until 2012 and I still have a 12 year old Silhouette. We do our fair share of salted roads in MD. It makes me wonder about the drivers of those vehicles with rusty brake lines.
We do our fair share of salted roads in MD.
The amount of snow and salt use in MD is significantly less then just 200 miles north. The more salt a vehicle is exposed to, the higher the likelihood and sooner the brake lines will be effected. We average 3-5 times the amount of snow you get here in NH and 3-5 times the amount of salt use…and areas in upstate NY average 3-5 times what of snow that we get in NH. So compared to the rest of the north east…the amount of snow MD gets is insignificant…and thus won’t effect the brake lines much.
Baltimore used 108,000 tons this past year - they normally use 37,000 tons…My small town of 15k people uses 25k tons a year.
Why are you wondering about the drivers, what could they have done to rust their brake lines.
You do your fair share of salted roads? You have NO IDEA! We measure the road salt in ton/miles. In midwinter you can’t tell a black car from a white one and you don’t bring the shoes you wore outside into the house. I put rubber mats over the carpets of the car in the fall and dump out the salt and snow every chance I get.
In the spring when all danger of snow has passed and all the salt has been washed or swept off the road (not yet), I take my hose and hook it up to hot water in the cellar and out to the car and flood the floor pans of the car one at a time while taking the top half of my shop vac to vacuum the water outside the car. All this to dissolve the hard white crust of salt in the carpet and padding.
Why are you wondering about the drivers, what could they have done to rust their brake lines
It’s not what they could have done to get the lines to rust…but what they could have done to prevent it.
I’ve seen vehicles 15 years old…and the brake lines show no signs of rust…yet the rest of the vehicle is rusting away.
I can buy stainless steel brake lines or even Copper Nickle tubing. The cost isn’t that much…why all manufacturers don’t use it…especially for something as critical as brakes.