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.

[DBCooper]

First off I'm not trying to be argumentative. Please read all of this before you get pissed off.

The purpose of the picture was to show that the hose isn't as resilient as rubber. We've all cut rubber hose before. You dont have to baby it with a high speed grinder to avoid damaging it. Cut it with an axe and the end will still be round. I believed that was relevent to the discussion.

Relevant how? We're talking about complete manufactured assemblies, not hose cut at home in the garage. Couldn't what you're showing indicate a hose material that's actually more flexible, not less, since it's being held in that oval shape by the braided steel reinforcement that was deformed by the side cutters? A steel cover that rubber hose doesn't have? In the actual science of the matter teflon hose (PTFE anyway) can have almost infinite flexing without affecting the material. As long as it's not overstressed by kinking, which is the big proviso. It's also pretty much impervious to aging, heat (great improvement over rubber), and chemical degradation, meaning any type of brake fluid, even the really nasty new synthetics. In that regard it's far better than a rubber hose, which in fact isn't 'rubber' at all, but also a synthetic. The only time that any brake hose should kink is if it's misused, like letting a caliper dangle from it without support. But that kind of misuse means any hose should be discarded, whether rubber or teflon.

Folks that have experience working with SS hose and those that have had failures are sharing their experiences with you. Take it or leave it. If you think they're the best thing since sliced bread go for it.

You assume I have no experience, which is not correct. But I appreciate your remarks, really. I'm probably a bit oversensitive because I'm in the safety business and also member of a committee that writes the safety standards for my industry. Not automotive and not hoses, but there still shouldn't be any product on the market that produces catastrophic failures at the rate that's being described here. I personally suspect that these failed hoses are because of some type of misuse somewhere, the hose has been kinked somewhere in the sales channel, packaging, in installation, or whatever. But that's only a suspicion on my part, and there's no way to know for sure unless someone is alerted and investigates. So please do me a favor. The next time you have one that breaks call that NHTSA number and report it to someone who can do something about it.

It seems odd to me that in all those DOT tests there isn't one that actually tests the line on a car. Did I miss those? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

That wouldn't be relevant. Laboratory tests only simulate real-world use, but in an accelerated, controllable and repeatable manner, so when I do the exact same test in my laboratory I'll get the same results that you did in yours. That's the laboratory standards testing, where the tests were developed from failures that had been seen in the field. But of course that depends on the regulators getting data from the field to become aware that there ARE problems so they can investigate and find the cause.

I'm not trying to be snide here, not at all. As I said before there are no current reports of brake line failures of any type in the NHTSA database, so if you're seeing repeated failures of brake hoses then for God's sake report them. It's in everybody's interest.