99 Civic brake line troubles
 

My brakes went out on me

Fine

Thats to be expected and my car has over 100,000 miles and it's driven in lovely Ohio weather year round


So I call for a tow and I decide to have it taken to a Honda dealer instead of another repair place I use simply because I can get a rental car FROM the dealer as I figured this repair would cost me some money and time down and i'd have access to a car while the car was in the shop



What I hadnt figured on.... was the figure

$ 2,000 bucks!



What had happened was the 99 Civics were designed and built where the gasoline and brake lines ran together the length of the car!! So they rotted out in the middle of the line and I lost my brakes



I'm getting a few other estimates by morning and if I can get it fixed cheaper I will --



Has anyone else had these kinds of 4 figure surprises despite taking care of the car?



I understand that this is a standard thing with cars (unexpected expenses) but still......


Ugh.... these blindside disasters really suck

There was another member on here who had a somewhat similar issue. He had some sort of brake failure, I think it was an ABS module, but they quoted him over a couple thousand for the fix. When it came down to it, even doing the work himself and buying cheaper, remanufactured parts, it was significatly less than the shop but still a hefty amount of money.

The issue and reason this may cost so much is that not only the lines need to be replaced, but many other components may need to be cleaned or replaced. When a line fails, you open the brake system to contaminiation(air, dirt, etc..). When this happens, lots of damage can occur. The fluid is contaminiated with air, which dosen't mix. You also get dirt and debris in the fluid which once it's in there, the second you hit the brakes, it will travel throughout the system contaminiated sensitive parts and seals. It's very hard to tell what parts have been effected or not so usually this ends up being a mechanics dream of charging lots on diagnostic time, labor and parts.

You might get a cheaper labor and parts quote from a smaller shop but don't expect it to be a whole lot cheaper. If it is significantly cheaper, hope that they do a good job inspecting and replace the parts. If anything is still contaminiated after the work is done, you could still end up with issues and spending loads of money...

Nice
Good to know where my income for the next few years is going so I can plan accordingly (grin)
thanks for the reply in any case