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I paid about $60 to get the regular brake hoses at Advanced Auto Parts. Is there much of a benefit to use the stainless steel braided brake line kit? They seem to range in price from $85-135 for most of them. The description says it improves performance even for the daily driver but is it mainly for competition racing? Is it worth a little extra cash for whatever performance increase they actually provide? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

Stainless steel lines are completly unnecessary for street use. You might feel a slight difference in the pedal but they are more beneficial on the track under hard, continuous braking.

 

Before you get to deep into the job as stated someware above have you been going to some quick lube or someware for your service's? If so before i started anywork i would pull some fluid and let it sit and see what seperates out and possibly send out for a analisis olso as stated above. Then when you find out what it is go after the shop doing the service. why should you pay the bill?

As far as stainless brake lines. I installed them on my toyota a few weeks after replacing all my rubber lines. I noticed a huge diffrence in peddal feel and braking. The peddal was much firmer and braking seemed to greatly inprove. Was definatly worth the money to me. Before i could not lock up the tires on my toyota truck after the swap i could lock up all 4 tires...

 

how did your brakes system get contaminiated in the first place ??

Who else work on it before?

 

Midas was the only place I've taken the car to when getting oil changes. I'm assuming they topped it off with the incorrect brake fluid on the last oil change and that's what caused the contamination.

I finally got all the parts & tools I need for the job so I'm probably going to start on it tomorrow. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do about the ABS unit since nobody seems to know exactly what the procedure is to bleed it / clean it / ignore it, etc.

If there is contamination in the ABS modulator wouldn't the ABS light illuminate? Would it be relatively safe to just drain the old contaminated fluid out, clean the metal hoses, replace all the parts & ignore the ABS and just hope it wasn't contaminated? If it is contaminated then flushing / cleaning it wouldn't help anyway. My only options would seem to be:

1.) clean & replace everything else while ignoring the ABS, while saving a few grand and just hope it wasn't contaminated for $200 or

2.) replace the entire system for close to $2,000 not knowing whether there was any ABS contamination or not.

I'm going to try option 1 first & hope for the best at this point.

 

Well, I got all the parts & tools so I started yesterday. I took off all the brake hoses, the master cylinder & the front calipers. I didn't realize I had to take the rear hub bearing off to get to replace the wheel cylinders so I wasn't able to get to that yet. I also let all the brake fluid drain out.

I have a bunch of questions for today though:

1.) I was thinking of replacing the rear brake shoes since I'm going to have the hub off anyway & it was only $16 for the parts. The service manual did say I have to replace the spindle & hub cap on reassembly though. Advanced Auto Parts didn't have those parts though so I was wondering if it's a big deal to just use the old ones again? Also, is there a trick to get spindle nut off? Do you need a special tool? My screwdriver wasn't quite small enough to get in there to bend it up.

2.) Do I need to use the vacuum bleeder to get all the brake fluid out of the lines or did it all come out yesterday when I unhooked the hose?

3.) Also, I'm hesitant about putting the brake cleaner through the metal lines & using my air compressor on the lines because I don't have a filter & I was just wondering if it would be effective to put fluid in the new master cylinder & bleed each of the metal lines on the front & back before I put the new hoses back on? Do I need to clog the tubes that aren't being bled?

4.) I don't feel comfortable taking off the ABS unit so I was thinking about just cycling a lot of brake fluid through the entire system instead. Then I was going to bring it to the dealer after I'm done & have them professionally bleed the system again just to be safe. Does that sound reasonable?

5.) I replaced the master cylinder yesterday with the new one. The instructions did mention using some device to check the pushrod clearance before installing the master cylinder. I don't have the tool to do that & I am not sure if that's necessary. On a relatively new car should that really be an issue where it needs adjustment?

Thanks.

 

Thread zombie here:
Midas = rip off artists
$4,000 would buy you a nice used Honda Civic.

 

Maaaan I was reading the 1st page & thought this was a NEW thread till I saw the date. I was gonna reply to that guy's issues too..LOL
yeah...$4,000 would buy a 2(two) Good used Civics(from owners) with money left over to change some fluids.