Replace Brake Hoses?
- Thread starter artbuc
- Start date
Shows you how old my car and I are! I thought I may have asked this before because it seems like most questions I ask about a 21+ yo car are repeats. Yikes, I have no idea where the years go. Looks like most said do not replace at 10 [except Trav) but most say do it now at 21. I will replace them if I can do the steel lines first.
Good news though. Toyota still supplies the steel lines for only $50 each. Not sure how hard it will be to snake them in. Biggest problem will be removing tray. All of the bolts are rusted and will probably snap.
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I assume you're referring to the Sunsong hoses that everyone reboxes nowadays. There's a reason why they do that: Sunsong makes a high quality product.
The other side to that is buying the tools when you need them usually pay for themselves in a job or 2 when you realize the savings in labor and diagnostics alone, the good part is get to keep the tools.
If you don't know how to use a tool or piece of equipment you have to learn which can be a lot of fun (for me anyway), you add to your skill set every time.
When I learned this trade starting in 1971 we didn't need many tools at all and a lot of the technical advances that are considered normal today were not even on the drawing board. Its been a lot of learning and a lot more tools since then.
JHZR2
Staff member
IIRC, the DOT spec assures life for six years; after that they are "done".
Doesnt mean I dont have 40yo lines on some cars... Some are OK, some have had to be replaced before brake jobs because they show bubbles on the outside!
Any time I do a brake job they get replaced now (on the old cars)...
JHZR2
Staff member
Whats your objective evidence on that?
All the very old (30+ year) hoses Ive removed are Pirelli...
Ha! I missed that it was you who started that thread! All I did was a quick search into the matter.
My VW seemed to have a lot of VW-only tools. Which would have paid for themselves by not paying labor. But some of the bigger jobs it seems wiser to pay for experience--it'll work first time, not third time after replacing yet more stuff. Like a timing belt on an interference motor.
I am not looking forward to debugging my first electrical gremlin...
Just have to factor tools into a car purchase. The scan tool and all the other tools expected. I've been fighting subscribing to alldata or whatever and getting a real scan tool, seems like I could spend a couple car payments between those two items. I was doing good and kept it to only needing one diag tool, but now I need two. That's life I guess.
You're asking me to provide evidence that something is good rather than asking the other guy for evidence that it's junk? Being junk is a lot easier to prove if it's the case.
Yes, electrical issues can be overwhelming if you let them get to you. Slow and methodical using a diagram is the easiest way to fix them.
Sometimes I study the diagrams for hours at night if it is a real complicated issue that involves modules or a previous hack job (more common than you think on some cars). You never load the parts cannon with this electrical repairs, some parts can get real expensive and you can end up spending a small fortune only to find out it had a bad ground or some other simple repair.
You must get an understanding of the system and its sub systems and the issues involved and how they are connected if there are more than one to work back to the root cause. After a while you will be doing this like you did it for years.
If you dont do a lot of different makes and models a FSM on DVD are available for almost anything for a few bucks on ebay. They work well enough and you can print the page(s) you need to take out with you.
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