What chemistry books define as an iron oxide formed by the redox reaction between oxygen and iron in the presence of moisture is a real issue among cars in this day and age. If a car isn’t maintained properly corrosion-wise, the brake lines can fail as easy as falling off a log.
In the olden days, rust was a mainstream defect among many passenger vehicles. Unfortunately, this condition is what made Lancia buy back a lot of rusty Beta vehicles in the late 1970s. In this era of all things automotive, only premature corrosion of the underbody remains a serious botheration.
There have been multiple recall operations in the US because of this vulnerability. According to the NHTSA, roughly seven years of exposure to winter road salts is enough for a model year 2007 vehicle to be susceptible to brake line corrosion.
When brake pipe corrosion is in its most advanced state, those rusty lines are prone to break, leading to a potential brake system failure. It’s needless to point this out but having no brakes is... ahem... a potentially dangerous situation for both the driver and passengers.
Other than regularly taking your means of transport to the service department to check the underbody for rust, what else can you do to prevent such a scenario from happening?
First and foremost, the undercarriage has to be thoroughly washed throughout the winter for an extremely simple reason: removal of the corrosive road salt. In the case of severe brake line corrosion, the NHTSA’s advice to drivers is to replace the brake pipe assembly in its entirety.
Last but not least, here’s an interesting fact: the automotive watchdog conduced an investigation over brake line failures due to corrosion on 1999 through 2003 model year full-size pickup trucks and SUVs. In most cases, the brake like coating materials gave up, leading to corrosion-related brake system issues.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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