Rusted Rear Brake Lines - Subaru won't honor their recall?

[birkhoff]

I just got into and accident here in Toronto a month ago because brake line ruptured. On Highway. Subaru Canada just told me to deal with insurance company. Insurance doesn't cover mechanical. Subaru Canada and Dealer don't take responsibility they say after recall was completed on both the line and the pipe. WTF. I am now dealing with one of their senior staff. This is insane and they should be taking responsibility. Perhaps some kind of class action should be in the works. We all could have been killed or killed someone else, children, hoards awaiting a bus, it's insane. I was quoted about $750 Canadian by my mechanic for repair of lines if nothing is rusty underneath like bolts and stuff. So this is common fail even after the recall.

 

I just finished dealing with this myself, since the brake line recall had been done to my car already (surprise!) and the dealer quote for repair was 'up to $5K due to rust and corrosion issues' . The car lived part of its life on the US northeast coast. I was losing about half a reservoir of brake fluid every two weeks.

 

And it WAS a huge job. Yes, it would be possible to haywire a line up and over the tank and jury rig something at the connection block but I didn't think that was a wise long-term solution. So out came the rear suspension, subframe and fuel tank. All were rusted to the point of not being reusable so I had to source good used parts as replacement. It took about 3 days just to gingerly remove the ten heavy subframe bolts that run up into captive nuts inside the unibody and if you tear those out, you basically scrap the car. Uncovered some suspension problems that had been wearing out my tires (already noted by the tire techs) and the source of an annoying gas smell that was due to an evap line nipple rusted off the top of the camel hump on the fuel tank. Other connections to the tank simply fell off when I ran my hand over them. Add to that new brake backing plates and e-brake cables, as well as a set of e-brake hardware. I had one bit of good luck, the rear brake calipers were not seized; well not completely. With a couple hours of coaxing I got them moving full range again. Countering that, I needed a new fuel pump. Even though I was super gentle taking it out, the flange was already cracked and leaked badly when everything went back into the new (used) tank.

 

In the end, keeping in mind that the dealer would have had to use all new, OEM parts for this, and have to go slow or risk bricking the car, I started to think their quote was not that unreasonable!

 

One thing that kind of kept me up for a few nights was finding out that in fact both LH and RH brake lines were essentially rusted through near the connection block. They both broke as soon as I started working on them. My theory had been, as a dual circuit system, I would not lose all braking if a rusted line blew out. Given the condition of those lines, I could have easily lost both circuits under hard braking. That may be the issue that Subie4 encountered and I agree, this is hard to forgive the manufacturer/dealer system for.

 

Anyway, I now have the west coast's sweetest 2005 LGT wagon from the rear seats back!

[Max Capacity]

It took about 3 days just to gingerly remove the ten heavy subframe bolts that run up into captive nuts inside the unibody and if you tear those out, you basically scrap the car

 

When my buddies body shop did that on my wagon, they just cut a square hole in the frame, put a new nut in, then welded the square back in.

[MDSubie4]

I just finished dealing with this myself, since the brake line recall had been done to my car already (surprise!) and the dealer quote for repair was 'up to $5K due to rust and corrosion issues' . The car lived part of its life on the US northeast coast. I was losing about half a reservoir of brake fluid every two weeks.

 

And it WAS a huge job. Yes, it would be possible to haywire a line up and over the tank and jury rig something at the connection block but I didn't think that was a wise long-term solution. So out came the rear suspension, subframe and fuel tank. All were rusted to the point of not being reusable so I had to source good used parts as replacement. It took about 3 days just to gingerly remove the ten heavy subframe bolts that run up into captive nuts inside the unibody and if you tear those out, you basically scrap the car. Uncovered some suspension problems that had been wearing out my tires (already noted by the tire techs) and the source of an annoying gas smell that was due to an evap line nipple rusted off the top of the camel hump on the fuel tank. Other connections to the tank simply fell off when I ran my hand over them. Add to that new brake backing plates and e-brake cables, as well as a set of e-brake hardware. I had one bit of good luck, the rear brake calipers were not seized; well not completely. With a couple hours of coaxing I got them moving full range again. Countering that, I needed a new fuel pump. Even though I was super gentle taking it out, the flange was already cracked and leaked badly when everything went back into the new (used) tank.

 

In the end, keeping in mind that the dealer would have had to use all new, OEM parts for this, and have to go slow or risk bricking the car, I started to think their quote was not that unreasonable!

 

One thing that kind of kept me up for a few nights was finding out that in fact both LH and RH brake lines were essentially rusted through near the connection block. They both broke as soon as I started working on them. My theory had been, as a dual circuit system, I would not lose all braking if a rusted line blew out. Given the condition of those lines, I could have easily lost both circuits under hard braking. That may be the issue that Subie4 encountered and I agree, this is hard to forgive the manufacturer/dealer system for.

 

Anyway, I now have the west coast's sweetest 2005 LGT wagon from the rear seats back!

 

As my car is pretty much rust-free except for the lines, I had the mech re-route the junction box close to the seat and away from the original destination accumulating salt or creating corrosion. On top of this, I bought the NiCopp line on Amazon and sent it to him. They've rerouted and replace all the lines in the rear of the car. It was only marginally more expensive. At the same time went with Stoptech softlines. I'll have the lines in front next year. The car is worth it. But the whole premise that all Subaru does under warranty is spray down a rusting freaking line is in my mind not a safety resolve. They should be as responsible for replacing the whole line as they are replacing an air bag. It's not like they taped the freaking air bag to stop it from deflating, they changed the whole bag. I'd rather not have airbags then not have freaking brakes where the damage to others is infinitely more grim. While I understand the car is old, whats the point of a recall if you don't do it write the first time. My hunch is they don't want to absorb cost of replacement and just give it a provisional "we've done what we can" considering, sending out a potential out of control missile into the general public. I mean "for real". My dad had an old Pontiac Parisienne for 20 years and 200,000 miles, rusted body and all and never undercoated throughout it's history and the brake lines never failed. Geepers. Some whine to go with my morning toast. . In all seriousness, I'm surprised there hasn't been a class action on this.

[Marvick08GT]

I agree MDSubie4, took me 3 months but I got them to replace the lines from the ABS Back. Lots of arguing, but I did not spend 1 cent.

[dub537h]

I understand that this is an old thread, but I had my RR hard line blow a couple days ago on my 09 obxt with 194,500 miles. I had no clue there was ever a recall, or even this corrosion issue, on these cars. I've owned over 30 vehicles so far (all in NH) and have never had a hard line go bad on any vehicle until now. I honestly didn't think that was even a thing! I've had a couple brake hoses go bad though...

Looking up my vin, it showed my car wasn't included in the recall for some reason. I ended up getting the LR and RR pre-bent hard lines from the stealership, figuring this was the easiest way to do it. They were only $130 total, special order.

I'm really not looking forward to dropping the subframe and fuel tank to get this done though lol. So is there anything else I should replace while everything is pulled out, thats a known issue as well? Maybe the fuel pump housing or lines running to and from the pump? Or maybe there is a stiffer bushing option for the bolts on the subframe?

I dont have the rear swaybar or interior in the car, so I do have some more room to work. Plus, I'm using my parents garage for this, so I have maybe a weekend or 2 to fully complete this job before they get impatient. I bought a flare wrench set, brake line flare tool, braided brake hoses, one man brake bleeder, and I'll be buying a new junction block for the rear this week. I also have plenty of gray and black POR-15 to use wherever I can.

Any advice or warnings before I go into it?

[KZJonny]

Too late for the easy out, which is to NOT get the OE lines. Instead to replace them with CuPro lines, which will never corrode again and are much easier to work with and bend. Probably $30-40 worth would have been enough to do the whole job...

Most people just install replacement lines following the rear subframe across, or go underneat the rear seats inside the car, to avoid further corrosion. I don't know what condition your car is in, but many have caused more problems dropping the tank than they intended.

Anyway, if you are going to drop that tank and subframe, I would seriously consider a couple of things.

- trailing arm main bushings: at 14 y.o. yours are probably worn out... Makes a pretty big difference in ride quality.
- all the other bushings, except subframe mounting bushes and probably not diff mount bushes; you definitely can, but they'll add quite a bit of NVH and I doubt you'll notice the difference in compliance. Your call, maybe it's worth it to you.
- when I dropped my tank I did all the above + stripped and painted the subframe (not required) + replaced all the EVAP hoses and clips that were old and rusting/dry and cracking + rust protected everything I could spray with Fluid Film/Corrosion Barrier... 

-It might not be a bad idea to try and get some penetrant into/onto the subframe bolts where they fasten to the unibody, more than a couple of people (myself included) have spun a weldnut inside the unibody where they had rusted away. Not fun, and it means you'll cutting a hole into the body somewhere to remove the nut and replace it. <--Hopefully this does not happen to you, but be aware that at the age these cars now, it's a possibility.

Good luck! Take some photos.

[dub537h]

21 hours ago, KZJonny said:

Too late for the easy out, which is to NOT get the OE lines. Instead to replace them with CuPro lines, which will never corrode again and are much easier to work with and bend. Probably $30-40 worth would have been enough to do the whole job...

Most people just install replacement lines following the rear subframe across, or go underneat the rear seats inside the car, to avoid further corrosion. I don't know what condition your car is in, but many have caused more problems dropping the tank than they intended.

Anyway, if you are going to drop that tank and subframe, I would seriously consider a couple of things.

- trailing arm main bushings: at 14 y.o. yours are probably worn out... Makes a pretty big difference in ride quality.
- all the other bushings, except subframe mounting bushes and probably not diff mount bushes; you definitely can, but they'll add quite a bit of NVH and I doubt you'll notice the difference in compliance. Your call, maybe it's worth it to you.
- when I dropped my tank I did all the above + stripped and painted the subframe (not required) + replaced all the EVAP hoses and clips that were old and rusting/dry and cracking + rust protected everything I could spray with Fluid Film/Corrosion Barrier... 

-It might not be a bad idea to try and get some penetrant into/onto the subframe bolts where they fasten to the unibody, more than a couple of people (myself included) have spun a weldnut inside the unibody where they had rusted away. Not fun, and it means you'll cutting a hole into the body somewhere to remove the nut and replace it. <--Hopefully this does not happen to you, but be aware that at the age these cars now, it's a possibility.

Good luck! Take some photos.

 

 

Thanks for your info and advice!

Originally I was only going to replace the blown RR hard line from the junction block to the soft line connection, but figured that if that side blew, the other wouldn't be far behind, so I opted for both. In retrospect, I probably should have just gotten a roll of NiCo tube, but I figured something bolt-on would be less time consuming. The biggest issue I could encounter is breaking one of those mounting nuts for the subframe. I really dont want to deal with that, so I'll saturate the bolts in PBlaster each day before I hit them with the Milwaukee Impact. 

Do the fuel tank mounts/straps generally go bad on these? If I'm dropping the tank, I should probably check those too.

I do want to nylon brush, clean, and por-15 the subframe and any hidden parts that I probably wouldn't ever pull off the car or even see again. 

With all this in mind, maybe I'll take more time on this project to do it all and cover all my bases. For the mileage, the car is super clean and in my opinion, the vehicle that checks every box- turbo, manual, wagon, ground clearance, awd...so I'd prefer to keep up with degradation as best as I can!

Thanks again for the help! 

[KZJonny]

Yeah man. Sounds like a good plan.

I am almost sure I reused my tank straps, at least I can’t find an invoice for them. Believe me, if they’d been at all bad I would have tossed them….

I also did Whiteline control arms while I had the whole rear end apart, and some Spec B trailing arms, etc… Seemed easier to upgrade the hardware instead of installing new bushings in the rusty old arms that had been there for 17 years, etc….

But that is all budget dependant. I’d argue it will save you time, but certainly not money. It’s a big enough job to take everything apart, I elected not yo have to do it twice.

[dub537h]

11 minutes ago, KZJonny said:

Yeah man. Sounds like a good plan.

I am almost sure I reused my tank straps, at least I can’t find an invoice for them. Believe me, if they’d been at all bad I would have tossed them….

I also did Whiteline control arms while I had the whole rear end apart, and some Spec B trailing arms, etc… Seemed easier to upgrade the hardware instead of installing new bushings in the rusty old arms that had been there for 17 years, etc….

But that is all budget dependant. I’d argue it will save you time, but certainly not money. It’s a big enough job to take everything apart, I elected not yo have to do it twice.

I actually have a set of whiteline adjustable lateral links to go on the car, might as well do those too. I'd probably need an alignment after dropping the subframe anyways, so why not! 

[KZJonny]

32 minutes ago, dub537h said:

I actually have a set of whiteline adjustable lateral links to go on the car, might as well do those too. I'd probably need an alignment after dropping the subframe anyways, so why not! 

Possibly, yes. I think if you replace any/many of the worn out bushings, an algnment would be smart for sure. So might as well do all of the work that will throw alignment out at the same time. Finish it all up and get one alignment done to take care of the whole package. Good luck with the work, it's a bunch, and I bet you find a couple of things that fight pretty hard, but I also bet you'll have a car that feels and handles a bunch better when it's all done.

[dub537h]

1 hour ago, KZJonny said:

Possibly, yes. I think if you replace any/many of the worn out bushings, an algnment would be smart for sure. So might as well do all of the work that will throw alignment out at the same time. Finish it all up and get one alignment done to take care of the whole package. Good luck with the work, it's a bunch, and I bet you find a couple of things that fight pretty hard, but I also bet you'll have a car that feels and handles a bunch better when it's all done.

I'll do my best to avoid the issues! It all seems straightforward, but there's always that stubborn rusty bolt or 2.

Cant wait to get it done and off my mind haha

Thanks for the advice!