Corroded brake pipes cost!

[00slk]

I did all the brake lines on my w124 a few years ago. I used copper and was able to slide and bend (manipulate) around the rear sub frame, bit of an act but got there in the end. Full set of copper pipes made up locally for £25

 

[thebandit]

Thanks to all for your comments.

I have taken on board recommendations from KennyN and daveenty for Merparts in Port Glasgow and am booked in later this month for a technical check over.

Cheers.

Hi,

Have you had the brake system checked over yet?

I’m in a similar situation and wonder what the price difference was going to be.

Thanks.

 

[Filternozzle23]

Merparts in Port Glasgow carried out a tech inspection and listed all. The problems were with the braking system and suspension.

They highlighted what was necessary and left it to me to decide what work should be carried out. They are pretty busy and I had to wait 3 weeks before they were able to carry out the work.

I opted to have the majority of problems put right. The result is startling, the car feels so much better to drive, more comfortable, holds the road on bends etc..

Really pleased with the results and felt that Merparts care about what they do. I will certainly be using them for all future servicing.

 

[Charliecloud]

I'm looking at getting into a E63 AMG estate and on 3 cars I have run a MOT history check the fronts and on one car both front and rear were marked as advisories.

Any one have current price for an Indy to replace Fronts ?

Thanks

 

[John77]

You can have the bad bits cut out and new section joined in for around £200. No need to run the length of the car.

I have always wondered why this is not done. I had a rear brake pipe replaced on a Eclass estate and apparently it is not a quick, easy job. I have been using this garage for many years and they are always reasonable with their prices, but got a shock when I got the bill. I need 2 brake pipes replacing on the SLK because of corrosion near where they connects to the brakes at the back. is there a reason why they replace it all?

 

[ajlsl600]

Today I took my 2004 CLK240 TO nearest MD, due to recall on sunroof. Sunroof turned out to be okay. However, a health check was carried out which resulted red marks for passenger front and both rear brake pipes being corroded. The price quoted to sort £907.82. Do forum members think this is norm for this work? I 'm still in recovery from shock!!

Prob 100 quid in nuts, fittingspipe ect if u find a way to do yrself n buy proper pipe flaring tool. NOT some halfrauds shixx I changed every pipe n fitting on my old aclass for less than that. Ask the stealer to list, wot exactly they are replacing. I bought a spare aclass complete with new tyres for less than 500quid you will need op 1 and op 2 flarer

 

[Uncle Benz]

For all you naysayers that advocate cleaning them up, this car had an advisory in January for brake pipe corrosion, NSR. 2010 e250cdi, W204.
The car came to me for a waterpump replacement. The brake pipe failed on the road test, and did wake me up rather suddenly…

 

[charlysays]

I've replaced the rear brake lines on my W202. I joined them up under the rear floor pan as the rest of the original lines were in good shape. Tbf, even at 25 yrs old with lots of rust on the car elsewhere they were nowhere near rupturing even in the worst areas, I just changed them as I was restoring the whole area anyway. Cupro nickel will last forever if supported properly. It is a big job but almost a grand is ridiculous. At the very least the diff has to be removed to allow the fuel tanks to be removed. At this stage you may as well drop down the rear subframe and hang it off the shocks. Might be different on other models but having to drop down fuel tanks and subframes is common on Mercs to change the rear pipes.

Personally I would just give them a close inspection especially where they clip on to the shell. Pop them out of the clips to check. The first stage is the shiny grey coating peeling and white rust which is the protective zinc doing its job protecting the steel lines. Then the brown rust starts when the zinc is exhausted in the damaged area. I wouldn't hesitate to sand back and grease/ waxoyl rusty brake lines providing they don't look like they have swollen up and gone really flaky. Deep pitting is not a good situation and they should be changed by light pitting and brown rust you can grease them up and they'll last years yet. You can't just slather them in grease though, the sanding bit is essential to check how corroded they are.

 

[charlysays]

For all you naysayers that advocate cleaning them up, this car had an advisory in January for brake pipe corrosion, NSR. 2010 e250cdi, W204.
The car came to me for a waterpump replacement. The brake pipe failed on the road test, and did wake me up rather suddenly…

I think the issue here is that they have never been closely inspected and never had any preventative maintenance done.
Whenever I buy an older car one of the first things I do is inspect all the brake lines all round, unclip them , rub them down if there's any brown rust, coat with white grease usually then check yearly and re grease as neccesary. The areas behind the fuel tanks which are shielded etc tend to be in good shape in my experience but you can often see most of them if you look carefully with a torch even if you can't get at them physically. When I took the lines off my 25 yr old rusty W202 they were nowhere near that corroded and were safe... but I had done the above maintenance on them as soon as I got the car 4 years before. Anything which looks like that pic you posted I wouldn't even drive the car tbh.

So yeah I agree I wouldn't trust an MOT test to pick up a rotten brake line- however any advisory on such an issue would immediately prompt me to do a full inspection and maintenance. If the owner of that car had got some 40 or 80grit abrasive on that pipe as soon as they got the advisory or better still when they first bought the car and cleaned off all the rust back to a shiny pitted surface it would have been extremely obvious the line was dangerously corroded. You can also try to flex the line slightly. Compare with a corrosion free area. When badly corroded the lines just collapse or bend very easily.