SS Brake Hose... Racing vs DOT Options

[Slick914]

What's the difference between the racing SS brake hoses and the street ones?

My car has the racing ones on right now, but I do have the street versions on standby.

[Cap'n Krusty]

The DOT is concerned with "now", not the longevity of the product as installed. Any automotive service professional familiar with this product will tell you to regularly inspect the hoses for abrasion and corrosion, and that they need to be replaced often. They were originally intended for race cars, not for use in the street, and race cars are driven on clean tracks, for the most part, and only a few hours a year. Besides all that, they offer little or no performance improvement over what came on your car from the factory. If they did, don't you think the makers of high cost, high performance cars would install them at the factory? They're "bling" for everyday use, and dangerous "bling" to boot. This has been discussed before, at length, and I've offered far more expansive answers in the past. A search might bring those up. How many conventional brake hose catastrophic failures have you seen? As a professional wrench, I've personally seen close to a half dozen SS covered teflon hose failures, out of what I calculate to be the cars of less than a small fraction of 1% of my customers' cars.

The Cap'n

[DBCooper]

The DOT is concerned with "now", not the longevity of the product as installed.

Yeah, not sure about that. Lots of examples, but an easy one is the Passat recall a couple of months ago for cars going back to the late 90's. That was for a heat shield, not nearly the critical level of something that would cause a catastrophic brake failure.

This has been discussed before, at length, and I've offered far more expansive answers in the past.

Yes, I've been impressed by those. Still am, obviously.

As a professional wrench, I've personally seen close to a half dozen SS covered teflon hose failures, out of what I calculate to be the cars of less than a small fraction of 1% of my customers' cars.

Yes, you've said that before, and that's what drew my attention. That's still a HUGE percentage for a product that is causing unpredictable and catastrophic brake failures. Remember the Firestone SUV rollovers? A few dozen accidents, millions of tires recalled.

I'm not arguing the fact, just very surprised that the DOT and a whole horde of unscrupulous ambulance chasing lawyers haven't taken this up. It would seem to be a slam dunk.