Detecting brake line wear?

[Iain Mannix]

SS hoses - IME, they're less reliable than OEM.

I always get a couple of dozen "but mine are fine!" comments
when I post this to lists, but whatever:).  YMMV, .02c, etc.

I've personally not seen one rubber hose fail without some sort
of physical interference - coming unclipped from the strut
and rubbing on the tire, for example.

I'm sure they CAN and DO fail, but in my experience as a car
junkie, I've not seen it.

OTOH, I've been autocrossing for 6ish years, and in that
time, I've seen 4 stainless steel hoses fail prematurely.
They seem to rupture on the inside, resulting in poor
braking and a kinda-neat looking spray of brake fluid through
the braid when the pedal is pressed.

We're currently using some braided lines on our EP autocross
car with a nifty clear rubber coating over the braid - it
is my theory that dirt gets into the braid & grinds away
at the lining until a leak springs.  Hopefully, this will
not be an issue on our car, hopefully the rubber coating
will keep them good for a while.

Dunno.  They do provide good pedal feel, but I'd personally
not use stainless lines on my street car - IME, they have a
dramatically higher failure rate than rubber.

YMMV, my opinion is worth what you paid for it, all that
great stuff, but to me, braided steel is not really worthwhile
on a street car.  Rubber works fine for me:).  Maybe the
DOT lines (I think ours are DOT, not sure who makes
them, sorry) have the rubber coating to address this
problem - don't know - all I do know is that I've seen
enough uncoated SS line failures that I'd not consider
them for a street car.


Iain Mannix