This Public Safety Announcement is brought to you by GM...My 05 Buick LeSabre suffered a rear brake line failure this evening during moderately hard braking. Fortunately this happened close to home. Sort of embarrassed about this since I normally check my vehicles over pretty well when doing an oil change and when doing other basic maintenance, but with the virus thing and much less driving among the fleet of cars, they are sitting quite a bit more than usual and not needing that much in the way of maintenance. Also got complacent thinking about brake lines since most of my car fleet are Volvos (which are built with rust-proof brake lines, like all cars SHOULD have).
I was quite surprised at how crusty those brake lines were as shown in the pics. Have the domestic makes upped the quality of brake lines they install in the last 10 years or so? I would hope that by 2020, mild steel brake lines have been outlawed. Are they? Or is the federal DOT or whichever agency that regulates safety standards still dragging their feet by not mandating safe brake lines? Rest of the car Is pretty rust free. Those darn brake lines are toast! Shouldn’t the more critical safety pieces be more rust resistant? Anyway, enjoy the pics and please check your brake lines!
I was quite surprised at how crusty those brake lines were as shown in the pics. Have the domestic makes upped the quality of brake lines they install in the last 10 years or so? I would hope that by 2020, mild steel brake lines have been outlawed. Are they? Or is the federal DOT or whichever agency that regulates safety standards still dragging their feet by not mandating safe brake lines? Rest of the car Is pretty rust free. Those darn brake lines are toast! Shouldn’t the more critical safety pieces be more rust resistant? Anyway, enjoy the pics and please check your brake lines!