Brake Pipes Corrosion?

st999

Would you expect the brake pipes on a 9 year old car to need to be replaced? 
Just had my Hyundai i10 MOT'ed and it failed because of excessive corrosion on one brake pipe and advisories on the other 3.
The annoying thing is the garage had just serviced it in the morning and never said anything about the brake pipes.
At least if they fix it the retest is free.
Time to find a new garage methinks.

alan_d

Pretty normal for a service to just follow a list of maintenance stuff, NOT double-up the checks the MOT does. The guy servicing it is unlikely to be a qualified MOT tester, so it sounds like the service was completed (typically just fluids and filters), car handed over to MOT guy, who has then failed it on the pipes.
Doesn't sound like a reason to change garages to me.

EdGasketTheSecond

Brake pipes are not part of a service but are in the MoT. Yes brake pipes can corrode in 9 years or less. Whether they fail can be a bit subjective on the tester's part. If you keep an eye on your brake pipes, you can head off corrosion by rubbing off surface rust and coating with underseal, paint, waxoyl, or varnish; well that's what I do anyway.

AdrianC

Back in the day, my old man had a Cavalier estate. It failed the first MOT - 3yo - on brake pipe rot.

Most factory-fit brake pipes are mild steel, with a plastic coating. Sometimes, that plastic coating gets damaged. Sometimes, they're merely inadequately protected. No great surprise that a car built down to a price might use shonky materials, really.

Replacements should be cupro-nickel.

foxy-stoat

Remember breaking a BMW Z4 some years ago, it was 6 years old at the time.  Removed a rear plastic inner arch guard and a load of mud fell out and revealed a brake pipe that was ready to explode.  Scary stuff as it couldn't be seen easily even if it was up in the air.

Jackmydad

AdrianC said:

Back in the day, my old man had a Cavalier estate. It failed the first MOT - 3yo - on brake pipe rot.

Most factory-fit brake pipes are mild steel, with a plastic coating. Sometimes, that plastic coating gets damaged. Sometimes, they're merely inadequately protected. No great surprise that a car built down to a price might use shonky materials, really.

Replacements should be cupro-nickel.

I remember talking to an MOT guy back in the days of the Cavalier. 
And no, he wasn't wearing a big hat with a feather.
He reckoned he'd just done an MOT on a 3 year old model that had needed several hundred quid spending on it to put it right. 
As I remember it, a lot of suspension and brake pipes.
 

molerat

AdrianC said:

Back in the day, my old man had a Cavalier estate. It failed the first MOT - 3yo - on brake pipe rot.

Most factory-fit brake pipes are mild steel, with a plastic coating. Sometimes, that plastic coating gets damaged. Sometimes, they're merely inadequately protected. No great surprise that a car built down to a price might use shonky materials, really.

Replacements should be cupro-nickel.

I remember my Peugeot 405 failing its first MOT on just about all the brake pipes.  One of them needed the fuel tank dropping to replace.  I also remember my Rover where all the brake pipes ran inside the car and just the last bits to the wheels were liable to corrode.

Ganga

I would rather change my brake pipes than have a massive accident,i know which would be cheaper.

st999

Ganga said:

I would rather change my brake pipes than have a massive accident,i know which would be cheaper.

Who said I wasn't going to get it fixed?
However at last years MOT there was no mention about the brake pipes being corroded, so 8 years OK then they corrode so bad in a year as to fail the MOT.

AdrianC

st999 said:

Ganga said:

I would rather change my brake pipes than have a massive accident,i know which would be cheaper.

Who said I wasn't going to get it fixed?
However at last years MOT there was no mention about the brake pipes being corroded, so 8 years OK then they corrode so bad in a year as to fail the MOT.

Entirely feasible, yep.

Mr MOT thought they looked fine last year. That's not the same as being like new - he merely didn't decide to put them on as an advisory. Some testers are freer with advisories than others, some owners whine when they get any advisories.
This year, they've got another year's-worth of corrosion, and he doesn't like the look of 'em.

jimbo6977

Brake pipes are the new CV boots: a nice earner for sketchy MOT stations, all the more so because the mention of brakes will scare folk into having work done.

I have a car that got advisories for brake pipes 3 years running, then no mention of them in year 4 at a different garage.