years ago my boss was having his truck repaired at the local shop and i suggested he have his brake lines replaced cause there were some stains on the outside which i took to mean it was rusting inside. the boss disagreed with me (of course). the next day we got a call from the shop asking us to come over. we got to see the hole that the truck made as it drove thru an interior wall of the shop because the brakes line split open when the mechanic was driving it off the lift.
stainless steel brake lines dont add anything to the weight of the vehicle and hardly anything to the cost!
although i agree that the OP has a valid point, expecting the installation and design to be easy to keep debris free, easy to clean, and better in 2007, than in 1987;
the original thought of having these items in 1987 is completely acceptable.
why is it so hard to accept that YES more maint is required on an older car, but the inherant design, and placement of certain parts sometimes leads to and, encourages rust, debris collection, and premature failure. this is true on cars built NOW. WHY?
so a robot can punch the holes in the unibody for the brake line clips a little faster?, so the brake line can use less clips, to save $$?
and last but NOT least (cyberbabe) why does this new forum have to be so confusing, and all over the place? posts most recent are all over the place? its hard to follow converations all over three pages, with daates and times mixed up, in random order.
Most owners manuals recommend replacing the brake fluid every few years since brake fluid (exc. silicone based) attracts moisture.
Since this line was rusting from the inside out this means the problem was not caused by the brake line but by one act of negligence and one act of stupdity.
The first was failure to change the fluid and the latter was failure to repair a known problem.
If one assumed that vehicle had stainless lines to begin with, then would anyone feel better if the lines did not burst and the truck plowed through the back wall due to master cylinder failure caused by contaminated fluid?
Stainless steel is going to have nothing to do with flexible hoses either. Those can also rot and break and just like steel lines; should be inspected on a regular basis.
Failure to inspect also points to…a negligent owner.
That example is not a vehicle problem; it’s a vehicle owner problem.
He was told, he chose to ignore the problem (the norm) and paid the price.
Quote: “so a robot can punch the holes in the unibody for the brake line clips a little faster?, so the brake line can use less clips, to save $$?”
Of course that is the reason! And the logic behind that is the ever-present factor of production costs. Since the public wants their cars at the cheapest possible price, and since the manufacturer wants to maximize his profit, the result is doing virtually anything and everything possible that will reduce production costs. And, unless a company wants to cease to be competitive, this will continue to be the case.
Alternatively, if someone wants to spend lots of cash, I would assume (and I could be wrong) that cars like Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Maybach, and the few others that are actually hand-finished, with minimal assembly line work, may have components that are more accessible. Unfortunately, those cars are out of the reach for most of us, so I guess that we will have to settle for buying mass-produced cars and maintaining them as well as we can.
In this case, stainless steel is mentioned and it is stated the price is not that much different.
It’s a lot different when dealing in tons of it.
Now if one uses the argument that stainless will only add “a little bit” to the price of the car then where does it stop?
Is the brake rotor size increased? This only “adds a little bit”, along with increasing the pad/shoe size.
Is the auto trans clutch pack size increased along with crank bearing and suspension component size?
Increase the differential size and quality so a rear end failure will never occur?
By the time the car is made maintenance and near bullet-proof the vehicle now is 22 feet long, weighs 4 tons, and has now been nickeled and dimed up to an MSRP of 90k dollars.
The stainless suggestion still does not resolve what should be done about those rubber flex lines which are far more prone to failure than a normal steel line.
If you had a car that ruptured a brake line or cylinder and your brake pedal went all the way to the floor with no braking left, then you had to have had something else wrong with your brakes prior to the rupture.
In a properly functioning system, a partial failure will leave you with a low pedal and reduced (50%) braking ability.
No they don’t. The pedal goes all the way to the floor, period. Maybe they work for a pinhole leak, but not for a rupture. Open a bleed valve on one wheel and see if you have any brakes, you won’t. If they had to work as people think they do, then the dual cylinders should have been side by side, not fore and aft.
Sorry, but what you are saying is incorrect for a properly working brake system. I have personally had a flexible brake line rupture (not a pinhole leak, a rapid loss of all the fluid in that half of the master cylinder) during a panic stop. I was still able to lock up the remaining two wheels (on a 1982 car). If your pedal goes all the way to the floor due to a rupture of a single line, have your system repaired.
The '95 has redundency designed into the system and would have reacted as McP suggested.
The '87’s parking brake should have been maintained and functioning. While it doesn’t have the power of an intact hydraulic system, it would have stopped the car in an emergency.
I agree that materials could be better selected. I recall some years ago working on a design where the engineer who selected the hardware, including the outside hardware, had chosen a chromate coating. The hardware rusted. When I looked up the federal spec for the coating he’d chosen, it specifically stated that it was not recommended as an enviromental protectant. It happens.
However, I also recognize that materials are selected to survive an enviroment with a life expectancy in mind. And the car’s old. In summary, better materials could have been chosen, but the ones that were met the design goals, and that’s really all one can reasonably expect. A large lawsuit might change the design goals, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing either. That’s a “slippery slope”.
" and last but NOT least (cyberbabe) why does this new forum have to be so confusing, and all over the place? posts most recent are all over the place? its hard to follow converations all over three pages, with daates and times mixed up, in random order."
I am responding to this bit because it’s been bothering me for a while, and I’m fairly sure the “cyberbabes” don’t care and aren’t paying attention anyway. You’ll notice they removed the feedback area where one could post suggestions on how to improve this new bulletin board, but no, it’s not really a bulletin board any more. Read the FAQ. This is supposed to be an exercise in “community building” or something like that. Never mind that probably dozens of perfectly usable BB systems already exist, no, the Public Action folks have to re-invent the wheel and make it triangular.
They still haven’t fixed the missing cursor problem, or any of the many other things people complained about from the very beginning. But, they decided they didn’t need any more feedback because clearly us prols don’t understand the fine goals they are trying to accomplish and are just dragging them down with trivial functional complaints.
Seriously, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is as good as it’s going to get. They have no intention of fixing it because they don’t think it’s broke. We just have to live with it or stop posting.
Sorry for going off on a tangential rant within another rant thread, but at least it’s still a rant . . .
