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brake hose life? 4

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knowlittle

Materials
Jul 26, 2007
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What life expectancy is engineered into brake hoses in general? I am a materials engineer myself but cannot even guess when to replace brake hoses. I suppose there is a huge factor of safety. Thank you.
 
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SAE J 1401

This SAE Standard specifies the performance tests and requirements for hydraulic brake hose assemblies used in the hydraulic braking system of a road vehicle.

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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.
 

There are fairly modern tales of 10 year shelf life, and somewhat shorter service life.

A thorough visual inspection might reveal a problem long before the alarm clock goes off.


I start to get nervous when bending the "rubber" outer cover reveals cracks, or there are bulges or soft spots or any external damage.
A white-knuckled 2 footed application of the brakes is probably a 2 or 3X working load test, which everything should pass just fine. But surface damage could still trigger rejection.
 
In 55 years of driving, I've never had a brake hose fail.
I _have_ had several instances of steel brake tubing failure, from rust, in states where winter brings out the salt spreaders.
With single-circuit brakes, the pedal goes to the floor, like stepping on a plum as the song goes, and you get to check the condition of your parking brakes.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
 
"In 55 years of driving, I've never had a brake hose fail."

I recall just one, on a well worn 1975 Volvo 245. Back then Volvos had a complicated split dual brake system with 2 hoses to each front caliper, in place of the nearly univesal front/rear split. I knew the hoses had deep cracks, completely thru the rubber casing, exposing the tender white inner liner.
A situation arose in city traffic requiring a heavy brake application. I popped one hose in each circuit, resulting in zero brakes.

I have looked at cracked brake hoses differently ever since.
 
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