Dealer Issues / Rusted Brake Lines

SouthCo · October 28, 2011

Good luck. Don't hold your breath but good luck.

wavery · October 28, 2011

honestly if it happened a year 1 or 2 years down the road i would not care as much woildent even make a stink about it needing to be replaced. would probrably bitch at the cost but any unexpected cost is a pain in the ass. its more the point that they are now finding these problems when the lemon law is now out of effect for me, the gas system was fine to sell to me but now i need to change out the lines, all the break lines are safe enough to sell to a customer and then one breaks because of rust. im aware that im probrably going to need to suck it up in the end and deal i just dont understand how people can do this kind of stuff and get away with it. in the end i will probrably just need to wat and see if the highway saftys investigation helps out (and yes there is a current investigation about the prone to rust brake lines)

I think that Mass is one of the States that has a "Vehicle Inspection" requirement. You should know more about that than I do but I believe that most of those types of State mandated inspections have more to do with body rust, bald tires, w/w blades, loud exhaust, smoking etc. I have never seen a State requirement to inspect brake lines for rust. I think this may be where "They can't sell a vehicle as-is" comes in.

Every time that I have heard a dealer make the argument, "I sold the car as-is", the judge went right for the jugular if the issue was safety related.......... When you get to court, I doubt that will be the argument...... even if it is true.

I live in CA so I am not familiar with U/C vehicle inspections in other States. The last place that I was Service Manager was an AutoNations Dealership in 2000 (AutoNations closed all of the U/C Mega Stores that year). At that time we used an inspection form that was like a 100 point inspection. It was a nation-wide form and I don't remember steel brake lines being of of the inspection points. The flex-lines going to each wheel were but inspecting all of the brake lines would be uncommon in CA. Maybe one of the snow belt techs can weigh in on this.

Having said that, we often received truck loads of vehicles from Colorado. We went over those vehicles with a fine tooth comb. If one of my techs found one that had that much rust, I would have rejected the vehicle with no estimate of repairs (and that was most of them).

The investigation that you are referring to does not cover 2004. I think that it covers like 1998-2003 or something but 2004 was not mentioned......... (maybe it should have been)

You may want to pick your battles. Either the dealership was negligent in not finding this issue or GM was negligent in producing vehicles with faulty brake lines........ If it were me, I choose a battle closer to home that I could prove.

2005LT · October 29, 2011

I think you hit the nail on the head Wayne with this being a bigger GM issue. I've heard a couple cases like this now, especially in the salty regions.

I know a work colleague out in Nova Scotia who was recently telling me about a 2003 Sierra 1500 4WD he used to own (sold it off) due to rust issues underneath. This similar type of issue happened to him a year or two back when he was backing his boat into the ocean down his somewhat steep boat launch ramp. As he was reversing down the ramp, he lost at least one brake line and the truck/trailer/boat combo started taking off down towards the water. Luckily he jammed the park brake early enough and managed to save it. He told me he should have just jumped out and let it go.

Later found the brake line(s) burst due to excessive corrosion. This same guy also owns a 2003 BMW 3 series car and the undercarriage looked to be in much better shape than his 03' Sierra with about the same mileage.

The OP has a 2004 truck. It's only ~8 years old and with a system as critical as a braking system, the lines should be lasting longer than that. Nothing more than GM cheaping out on the brake line material quality.

Being that the truck was sold at a GM dealership, and with them knowing the lines are a problem, they should have checked that before selling him the truck. I can see his frustration with it. Good luck!

rjirvine · October 29, 2011

My 2000 ECSB Silverado rear brake line blew awhile back when I was braking for a 4-way stop. Luckily there was no other traffic as I coasted into the intersection. I had it towed to the dealer and the cost to replace the line was $330, including tow. They had to make the line. It was the line from the ABS module along the frame rail by the fuel tank to the rear brake connection. Money well spent in my opinion.

After some research, this is a common problem, and you can file a complaint with NHTSA online (which I did). I know they are looking into the problem, and if enough people complain they might force a recall. If they do, you would get your money for the repairs reimbursed so the thinking goes.

T1ME_Killa · October 29, 2011

I wanna say thanks to all of you for giving me help, and assisting in preparation for what sounds like a long road ahead. I did talk to NHTSA and my truck will be covered if the recall is forced and the worker told me that NHTSA are getting calls about trucks and suv's as new as 06 and they would be added to the list.

wavery · October 29, 2011

I wanna say thanks to all of you for giving me help, and assisting in preparation for what sounds like a long road ahead. I did talk to NHTSA and my truck will be covered if the recall is forced and the worker told me that NHTSA are getting calls about trucks and suv's as new as 06 and they would be added to the list.

That's good news....... I thought that 2003 cut-off sounded rather odd unless GM recognized the issue and started using different brake-lines.

Did you get your old lines back?

T1ME_Killa · October 29, 2011

I wanna say thanks to all of you for giving me help, and assisting in preparation for what sounds like a long road ahead. I did talk to NHTSA and my truck will be covered if the recall is forced and the worker told me that NHTSA are getting calls about trucks and suv's as new as 06 and they would be added to the list.

That's good news....... I thought that 2003 cut-off sounded rather odd unless GM recognized the issue and started using different brake-lines.

Did you get your old lines back?

I left a message at the shop so fingers crossed!

T1ME_Killa · October 29, 2011

Latest issue on a lighter note, Were did i put my ice scrapers!! 8 inches today?! its October!

wavery · October 29, 2011

Oh great!!!!! Now you've stooped to posting obscene pictures... ...... I'm outta here.....

T1ME_Killa · October 29, 2011

Man up and just pay you bill. This was not hidden damage in any way. You had 5 months to find it and you ignored the rusty lines. You bought a used truck far out of warranty so you inspected the truck before signing the papers and you accepted the deal. Sure it is a dealer certified used truck. The dealer certified it as "used" and now its certified as "yours".

i am not a mechanic. the gm dealer was the mechanic i used for all my work on the two trucks i have owned, i took it to them multiple times for work, they should have warned me about the issue. i am not a doctor, i go to a doctor for checkups and to help me when i'm sick. same thing with the truck i took the truck for its checkups and to fix it when stuff went wrong. how can i tell the issue if i don't know what I'm looking at? its like diagnosing yourself with cancer and your not a doctor. i trust my doctor, i trusted my mechanic.

wavery · October 29, 2011

Man up and just pay you bill. This was not hidden damage in any way. You had 5 months to find it and you ignored the rusty lines. You bought a used truck far out of warranty so you inspected the truck before signing the papers and you accepted the deal. Sure it is a dealer certified used truck. The dealer certified it as "used" and now its certified as "yours".

i am not a mechanic. the gm dealer was the mechanic i used for all my work on the two trucks i have owned, i took it to them multiple times for work, they should have warned me about the issue. i am not a doctor, i go to a doctor for checkups and to help me when i'm sick. same thing with the truck i took the truck for its checkups and to fix it when stuff went wrong. how can i tell the issue if i don't know what I'm looking at? its like diagnosing yourself with cancer and your not a doctor. i trust my doctor, i trusted my mechanic.

Does that mean that I can go back on my Dr because he missed my prostate cancer for several years????

In all fairness here, steel brake lines are not a commonly inspected or replaced item. ..... Ya.... you'll find some that have had to have one replaced after a failure but I doubt you would ever find someone that replaced them as a preventative measure.... and really, that's what we are talking about here.

If the brake lines were rusted, ugly nasty from end to end, that's one thing. If the line cracked in a particular rusted area that is not conducive of all of the lines, that's a different story. A lot of the brake lines are not exposed.

I'm not suggesting that it should have been your personal responsibility to be mechanically inclined any more than one would expect you to do self-examinations. However (like some have pointed out), you bought it used...... "Certified" could mean a lot of different things but NO ONE can certify that a brake line won't crack (new or used) any more than they can certify that your air bags will work in a collision.. The question is.... "How obvious was the corrosion". That's why those old lines might help you or might work against you.... My gut feeling is, if the mechanic pointed out that they were really bad, you would have taken pictures at the very least and hanging on to the old ones should have been common sense if they looked really bad.

I don't know what you do for a living but I'm thinking that if you found something in your particular field that looked like someone was neglectful to the point of possibly causing someone a loss of some sort, you might be compelled to hold on to evidence of that........ just seems like what anyone might do.

truckofwinandawesome · October 30, 2011

You Lost ALL of your Service Brakes? something tells me MORE than one Line decided to pop. I once blew a Wheel Cylinder in the Plymouth, and ONLY by the system's design, I still had 50% braking power.

jblakeney · October 30, 2011

I have always seen people walk in my store and request a short piece of brake tubing X size, 2 compression unions x size, and a bottle of brake fluid. I can not count the times that request has been uttered at me AND I DON'T live in a salt belt area..... My brake lines are nice and shiny still, as is most everything under my vehicles still is due to my area.

I live in south central Mississippi....... Snow doesn't stick and it doesn't ice here much and if it does, we use sand, and ice is gone usually early in the morning, if it does happen. But I have seen my fair share of rusted lines underneath vehicles. And yes, I have repaired my fair share of them also. I personally think for what we pay for these vehicles new, Stainless Steel wouldn't be a bad thing here for the metal lines adorning our vehicles undercarriage. Not just a coating on a steel line. It would also be a great safety feature also for you guys in the rust belt.

With that said, when I restore or freshen up a braking system on one of my old vehicles, I always replace the steel brake lines....... Also, its always replaced with stainless...... Inline tube has the tubing kit for my 99 GMT800...... And if they didn't you can box up all of your lines, ship them to them and they can make you a brand new set exactly like your old ones, except they can use stainless.............

Jbo

truckofwinandawesome · October 30, 2011

I have always seen people walk in my store and request a short piece of brake tubing X size, 2 compression unions x size, and a bottle of brake fluid. I can not count the times that request has been uttered at me AND I DON'T live in a salt belt area..... My brake lines are nice and shiny still, as is most everything under my vehicles still is due to my area.

I live in south central Mississippi....... Snow doesn't stick and it doesn't ice here much and if it does, we use sand, and ice is gone usually early in the morning, if it does happen. But I have seen my fair share of rusted lines underneath vehicles. And yes, I have repaired my fair share of them also. I personally think for what we pay for these vehicles new, Stainless Steel wouldn't be a bad thing here for the metal lines adorning our vehicles undercarriage. Not just a coating on a steel line. It would also be a great safety feature also for you guys in the rust belt.

With that said, when I restore or freshen up a braking system on one of my old vehicles, I always replace the steel brake lines....... Also, its always replaced with stainless...... Inline tube has the tubing kit for my 99 GMT800...... And if they didn't you can box up all of your lines, ship them to them and they can make you a brand new set exactly like your old ones, except they can use stainless.............

Jbo

that is what we are going to use when we replace the Brake Lines in our '79 Mustang Ghia: ALL Stainless Steel.