Detecting brake line wear?

[Larry C Leung]

Your abrasion theory is correct, the rubber coating should help. But
being that your car is EP, it's not going to see road crud anyway, eh?
(hate picking bits of stuff outta the slicks). BTW, is your EP car a
Rabbit/Scirocco or something better balanced (Mazda RX2's and 3s were
pretty hot when I was seriously into it!)

LL - NY, registerd Old Fart

On Mon, 10 Dec 2001 14:35:54 -0700 (MST) Iain Mannix <mannix at rmsolo.org>
writes:
>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
>
>