Not looking good for the Bosch Reaxx TS

[Jack]

Obviously I do.

[Jack]

Same here, except my vehicles were in the rust belt, and started in the

50's rather than the 60's. Actually my first car was a '49 Dodge Truck. Everything in Cars from the '50s rusted except the frame and break lines.

Even if newer fluid is more hygroscopic, I still think the rust is coming from the outside, not the inside of the lines.

IF the newer fluid was causing brake line failure, you might think Big Brother would be all over it, like they got over freon in air conditioners, or VW for fudging the MPG stats.

[Jack]

My wife bought a '79 Honda Accord. It was car of the year. Nice car but a total rust bucket. EVERYTHING rusted out. Hood, fenders, gas tank, Strut suspension. I thought my '55 Ford Crown Vic was a rust bucket, not even close. Honda fixed most of it under warranty, had to lose money on that one. How does a hood rust? So much for Car of the year crap.

[DerbyDad03]

One could assume that with the advancement of accident reconstruction capabilities it might not be that hard to determine if a rusted brake line was the cause.

Visual inspection of the brake lines, even if mangled, could show a difference between "collision mangled" in some sections and "blown out rust spots" in others. Lack of skid marks, brake fluid upstream from the accident site, the vehicle's black box, etc. could all help in making the determination.

Any of the teams from the various CSI's would have it figured out in the first 10 minutes. ;-)

The daughter of a co-worker recently drove her boyfriend's pick-up into a utility pole - by choice.

She was driving downhill towards a red light at a very busy intersection. She applied the brake and the pedal went right to the floor. Being a fairly young driver (18) and in her first real emergency situation, her first thought wasn't to try the emergency brake, it was to *not* go through the red light.

She chose the pole instead, which did a real good job of stopping the truck. Poor kid. She had to quit high school sports because of multiple concussions and then suffered a serious one during the accident.

[clare]

Dot3 and DOT5 were VERY hygroscopic. Law required fluid only be sold from a sealed can.( I was a mechanic back in the late sixties) DOT5 is hydrophobic, meaning moisture is not absorbed. All fluids up to DOT4 were poly-glycol based while DOT5 is a silicon based synthetic. NEVER mix Dot5 with Dot4 or below. Dot5.1 is an acceptable substitute, but NEVER mix it with Dot5. Any vehicle using DOT5 should be CLEARLY LABELLED as such. It is technically illegal to use DOT5 in a vehicle not originally built with and spec'd for DOT5 fluid.

NO DOT fluid has EVER been sold as or considered to be a "permanent" fluid.. Look up "wet boiling point" and "dry boiling point for DOT Brake Fluid.. PolyGlycol fluids absorb up to 3% water per year....

[clare]

and 90%+ of those "stuck gas pedals" were stuck to the floor by a panicked driver's right foot. There are virtually NO incidents of a "stuck accellerator pedal" causing an accident without previous signs of trouble like high idle speeds or sticky-notchy accelerator action. They NEVER failed catastrophically with no warning. Whether the driver heeded the warning or not is another question. The failure mode was a gradual deterioration causing slow return to idle and/or stiffer throttle actuation before failure.

Many reports said something like "I had both feet on the brake and it STILL would not stop" Brake Idle Algorytm solved that issue by forcing the throttle to idle imediately if the brake pedal was depressed, but made it impossible to drive the vehicle agressively by locking the rear wheels with the foot brake while powering through the "slipperystuff" forcing the vehicle into oversteer. by hanging the rear end out.

Whacking the brake pedal in the "marbles" was an effective way of getting the rear to hang out on the R12 rallye car - and simpler than pulling the hand brake.

[Leon]

It is still a mystery to me why they did not simply shift into neutral or turn the ignition off.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Lack of common sense, lack of training, panic. It is a strange feeling to push down and have to brakes though.

[clare]

The brake lines on the '57 Fargo (Canadian Dodge) P'Up rusted too. I replaced them (and rebuilt cyls) for Dad before I left for Africa back in 1972 - so they were only 15 years old. When my brother redid the truck circa 1975 the mechanic doing the safety assumed the lines were original and yanked them off saying they needed replacing. ( just to show it was common to consider 15 year old lines to have passed their "best before date") I tore a strip off him about 1/4 inch thick when I came back from Africa in '75 and the truck was sitting on stands waiting for wheel cyls and flex hoses, as well as grease seals (it was a VERY rare Custom Express with heavy duty suspension (basically a 3/4 ton front axle) and the big 241.5 cubic inch flatty -(Same displacement as the 53-54 Red Ram Hemi). It was quite possibly a "one of". It took me just over a week to source all the parts and re-install them - and I told the mechanic and garage owner (both "family friends") they could tear up any bill associated with the job AND sign the safety. (Still cost several hundred dollars in un-necessary parts - as well as delaying my brother getting it on the road for over 2 months).

I ended up trading my kid brother a 2 or 3 year old Colt wagon for the truck a couple months later and drove and showed the truck for several years after completing it.

When I rebuilt my '53 Coronet Sierra (a Van Nuys Californis car) in

1972 I had to replace all of the brake lines as well. - it was only 18 years old.. I scrapped my 1985 LeBaron T&C wagon in about 1994 (it was only 9 years old) when both the brake lines and chassis rotted away. My 1995 Mystique lost it's brakes due to a rusted line in about 2004

- about 9 years old. It was only a section about 5 or 6 inches long that had rusted, so I cut the line back to a solid point, flared it, and spliced in a short hunk of CuNi line I happened to have left over from another job.

Back when I was an apprentice machanic, back 1968 -1971) I replaced a LOT of brake and fuel lines on cars from the fifties and sixties.

1959-!961 Chevies were BAD for rust, as were '57--63 Mopars and just about any Ford newer than 1954. Brake lines, fuel lines, fuel tanks, and unit bodies - rear spring shackles coming up into the trunk of Darts and Valiants was pretty common - and Falcons too. And front fenders developing "zipper fenders" on '63 Ramblers within 3 years.

I got rid of my '63 Valiant when I bought my 2 year old '69 Dart and I replaced the brake line across the rear axle on that one too - so it was less than 8 years old when I had to replace rusted lines - and that was a single system - so when you lost fluid, you lost ALL of the brakes.

My current vehicles are15 and 21 years old - with all original lines - I DID need to replace the fuel tank on the 15 year old Taurus due to rust perforation (just about the only rust on the car)

It's not the fluid causing the line failures. It's a combination of"cost engineering" and atmospheric conditions. (Road salt, humidity, etc)

I'd have to say the problems are LESS pervasive now than in earlier years. I BUY cars now at the age I used to have to sell./scrap cars

50 years ago, and then I drive them up to another 10 or 12 years!!!!

[clare]

Was there a 1979 car you could buy that WASN'T a total rust bucket??

1855 to 1961 - or even 1969, and 1978 to 1986 just about EVERYTHING was a rust bucket.

In 1982 you could sit on your front porch and listen to your new Torino rust on the driveway. Not uncommon for the driver's mirror and about 35 square inches of rust-worm infested sheet metal to fall out of the door before it was 3 years old.. It wasn't uncommon to see strips of duct tape around the windsheild on 3 or 4 year old cars to keep the water from dripping on the driver's foot in the rain - didn't matter WHO made the car.. The front fenders on my brother's 1977 Dodge AshBin (oops, that was SUPPOSED to be Aspen) had the front fenders replaced under warranty at

2 years of age due to rust PERFORATION..

They say "they don't make 'em like they used to" - and I say "THANK GOD!!!!"

[clare]

Total instant brake failure is more likely to be a bad master cyl than a blown line - unless the brakes are also WAY out of adjustment (to the point the pedal was "seriously" low) previous to the failure.

If the rear drum brakes are "loose as a goose" and a front line goes south, there is not enough displacement in the master cyl to effectively apply the rear brakes on the first pump. (and then the rear brakes on an unloaded Pickup truck going downhill are not going to be anything close to effective in stopping the vehicle anyway) The properly functionig rear brakes on my 21 year old Ranger are still original, and about half lining left when I checked them last fall - at 350,000km while the front pads are set#3 (and now running on oversized 11 inch rotors) - so you know the rears are not doing a heck of a lot of work - and mine has several hundred pounds of cap and bed-liner)

[clare]

It's called "panic" and fear that they would have no control with theengine shut off ( well -duh!!! you have no control now either - right??) "common sense" today isn't very common - sadly.

[Jack]

Yeah, I was skeptical myself.

If you ever were barreling down the road at 50MPH in the summer on dry pavement, touch your brakes to slow down and the ABS goes of, giving you

50% braking power as you approach a line of stopped cars in front of you, you will very quickly be standing on your brake pedal. Taught me that my brake pedal would not break, or bend under immense force brought on by a rapidly building panic that I was not going to stop in time. Force vs a computer, computer wins. Fortunately I was not in a hurry that day, and knew there was traffic at that spot every day, and had allowed plenty of room to slowly come to a stop. Stopped about a foot behind the car in front, with both feet on the pedal. Very scary.

[Jack]

Have you ever had to slam on your breaks to avoid hitting something? Car in front of you slams on breaks to miss dog/deer/kid you hit your brakes and nothing much happens, or the gas pedal is stuck. Zero chance to shift into neutral, or open your hood, pull the ABS fuse and hit brakes again.

In the case of my wife's girlfriend, she was pulling into a parking space in front of a business, according to her, the gas pedal stuck and she careened though the wall of the store. Her Lexus was totaled, but the business suffered astronomical damages. I was skeptical of the stuck gas pedal as the Lexus issue was pretty much debunked at the time.

[Jack]

Yes, if anyone wants to undertake the task. Intermittent failure like my GMC Truck ABS system would be impossible to figure out I'd think, probably why the recall was to "clean the sensors" which works for a brief time. Not even sure it works at all as they went off randomly, not constantly.

I reckon if the FAA can determine the cause of planes falling out of the sky, someone given enough time and resources could figure out the cause of a car falling into a tree. My time spent in a collision shop (many, many years ago) saw zero efforts made to figure out why someone got dead in a wreck. Our shop had it in with the local police and all wrecks were towed by us to our shop unless the owner insisted on someone else. Dead ones never did... most people never did.

For sure:-)

She's a real hero. Going through the red light could risk multiple lives, she is one brave girl, good for her. I hope she was driving a GMC vehicle and the brake lines rusted out, and she sues them for millions, and they get fined more than VW did for fudging on MPG.

If it was a GM product, and it was rusted brake lines or ABS failure, tell her I'd be happy to testify on the 100% brake failure on my last 3 GM purchases since 2001, as well as GM's failure to address or fix the problems.

[Ed Pawlowski]

What set the ABS off? Are you saying it was not needed and cut braking power to 50% ?

[Jack]

I bought a 1978 GMC Van, and it didn't rust out after about 15 years. I had it Z-barted immediately after purchase though.

Before my wife bought the Accord, she bought a Maveric. I reckon around

1973-4. You absolutely could sit on the porch and listen to it rust away.

Yes, particularly true of cars from the 50's. Bodies were bad, but motors were pure junk. Well, not sure it was just the motors, motor oil was junk as well. Tune up every 6 months or year, points, plugs, condensor, plug wires (never brake fluid though:-)) Complete engine rebuild after 30 -40,000 miles or so, if anything was left of the car.

My 2001 GMC PU has never been tuned up, runs and starts like it was brand new. I now wish I would have had the thing Z barted. Outside of truck looks new, underneath, rust city. Never saw a bumper rust like this. My SIL stepped on the rear bumper one day (150lbs soaking wet) and it bent in half. Looked new but underneath it was rust city.

GMC recalled the tailgate straps cause they could rust. No problem with the bumper, designed to step on to get in the bed, breaking in half. He could have easily been injured. If it had been me, I would have been hurt.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Sure, but many of the cases were long distance, not emergency stops. A couple of them even had time to make a phone call or to call 911. In those cases, plenty of time to react.

Most people don't pull into a paring spot with the gas pedal to the floor either. Brakes can easily overcome modest engine power.

[clare]

Gotta think like a pilot. Always keep a "safe landing spot" in sight at all times. I was told by several cops to choose a guard rail over the back of the vehicle ahead every time if you "know" you won't get stopped in time. No chance of a careless driving charge sticking if you can "proove" you recognized the danger, made a concious decision on avoiding the colission, and acted on it. You may have made a faulty decision - but making the decision and acting on it does NOT constitute careless driving..

Also, releasing and re-applying the brake has about a 50% chance of re-establishing braking power in the case of intermittently misbehaving ABS . If you are aware that the ABS is flakey and you continue to drive the vehicle, you better be allowing a lot of extra stopping space AT ALL TIMES. Also be ready to use the emergency brake if required. It will only give you rear brakes - but they will not be released by the computer. Just don't lock them and slide the rear end around causing you to loose ALL control of the vehicle. Don't want to be charged with driving an unsafe vehicle

I have been known to use reverse to stop a vehicle with malfunctioning brakes too. Hand brake to lock the rear brake, into reverse and hit the gas. The rire rotating backwards had more effect slowing the vehicle than just sliding locked!! (rear wheel drive) and more effect "biting down" through packed snow than wheels rolling on the snow due to ABS shutting off all 4 brakes. Using reverse cost me a diff on the 69 dart when one wheel caught dry pavement while moving in the opposite direction. Took the spider gear out and stopped the car DEAD - right there. - but I didn't hit anything..

[clare]

My ranger had the same "intermittent" false trigger - totally unpredictable other than more likely to act up when cool and damp. I cleaned all the grease off the reluctor wheel on the LF wheel hub (part of the brake rotor on the Ranger) and the problem went away. That was something around 3 years ago,

Like I have stated, and given examples before, it is NOT just a GM problem. GM buys it's lines from the same companies Ford and Chrysler do. Likely Honda and Toyota and hyundai and all the other companies that assemble vehicles in North America - whether that be Canada, Mexico, or the USA.

ABS problems are a different story ---