NCT Woes: Brake Lines

Crapbag

After putting my car in for the NCT last month, I was failed on the vehicle missing a CV boot cover and 'Advanced Corrosion' on the brake lines. I asked the NCT technician to specify where the problem was and he said the lines leading to the flexible hoses. Needless to say on my car (97 Honda Logo) all the lines eventually meet the flexible hose. However I couldnt complain about failure as the CV cover was missing, no problem.

So myself and a friend began to tackle the problem. We put the car on ramps and I inspected the lines. I couldnt find this advanced corrosion they were talking about. The lines had a small amount of corroded paint near the flexible pipes and up near the rear brake cylinders. So I decided to clean off the pipes to see if there was any structural damage to the pipes from the corrosion. I cleaned all the pipes and under the surface paint, they were all perfect and honestly in great nick. I wouldnt take a chance on something that critical. So I decided to put the car in again for the retest.

The next NCT technician failed the car because I had removed the corrosion and not replaced the pipes. I asked him where he could see corrosion and he said he couldnt because it had been removed. I was absolutely furious. I asked him which lines needed replacement, he waved me off and said 'All of them'. I couldnt believe this. I knew that brake line replacement would be about 300 to 400 euro based on labour needed to replace them. I couldnt afford that.

So myself and my mate who is a qualified mechanic went about doing it ourselves as we have the tools and knowledge. We removed the brake lines and brought them into a reputable motor factors. They gave us the replacement lines which cost about €120. We managed to get them fitted after 3 days of messing around because of weather and waiting to have them made up.

So this weekend I met another friend of mine who is a mechanic too. I told him about the crap I went through and that I had replaced the lines with copper brake lines. His jaw dropped and he said that I cant use copper. They have to be nickel plated at least which mine arent. So after almost €200 of money I cant afford to spend, I have a car that wont pass. Has anyone any advice or do they know if this is correct about copper brake lines? How come the Motor Factor didnt tell me this at the time of buying the pipes and I didnt even specify to use copper!?

Here are my thoughts on what I might do. I have the old pipes which are still perfect. I was thinking of sanding them down and spraying them a silver colour or black. Then I would fit them back on the car (Nightmare job!). Alternatively I could try paint the copper pipes in place but its would be difficult to do a good job with clamps and the pipes rising above the petrol tank. Also, they look copper, there are kinks in the pipes from putting them in place. Any advice or input would be great

E39MSport

That's a right pita. Sorry for you.

If you've kinked the new ones and the old ones are in good shape then I'd definitely coat the old ones and reinstall them.

Crapbag

They arent badly kinked in that they dont show metal fatigue. Its just the nature of copper that when bent, its a curse to get them properly straight again. There are just some obvious small kinks where they run straight along the car.

aujopimur

Since when are copper brakelines not acceptable ?

Crapbag

Im not sure but I mentioned that I used copper to a friend of mine. He works as a senior tech mechanic for a Renault dealer. He had just done a replacement set of pipes on an old ford fiesta. He told me they cant be copper. Ill try get more info on this... I hope to god he is wrong on this

Nissan doctor

There is no issue with copper brake lines, and you will have no issue with passing the NCT with them.

Crapbag

No offence intended by this but... how do you know?

EDIT: Ok I see you're a mechanic but I also got my info from another mechanic

aujopimur

Nissan doctor wrote: »

There is no issue with copper brake lines, and you will have no issue with passing the NCT with them.

I'm glad to hear that, although the NCT does'nt apply I'v just made and fitted a set to my DKW.

swhyte027

There is no problem at all with copper pipes as we use copper replacing brake pipes everyday and have never had a car fail do to usen copper pipes.so ur other friend that's a mechanic must not be to well up on brake pipes r mechanics.no offence ment.

Crapbag

No offence taken. Hell, im delighted he is wrong. For me, getting those pipes replaced was a nightmare. Not having to do it again is brilliant.

Thanks all round for the contributions

Borderfox

Had the same problem with a 3 series coupe, said it had advanced corrosion on one of the brake lines leading to the back brakes. Asked to see the manager and got them to put it up on the ramp to show me and it was muck on the brake line, I have had a couple of run ins with the nct crowd so I just go on the attack from the get go.

Crapbag

Ha, I should have done the same. There was nothing wrong with my lines at all. In fact when I asked where the corrosion was, the Technician got very defensive with me and went on about lodging a complaint. I hadnt even mentioned a complaint, he actually made me mad. I was calm about failing until he opened his mouth.

I have the old lines and I will be lodging a complaint with the NCT now though. I will be looking for the cost of the full re-test back.

swhyte027

Well ur lucky with the BMW because that's the brand we specialise in and we do at least 2 if not more e46 3 series bmws brake lines aweek so chances are if u didn't replace them yet ur defo going to have to

Borderfox

swhyte027 wrote: »

Well ur lucky with the BMW because that's the brand we specialise in and we do at least 2 if not more e46 3 series bmws brake lines aweek so chances are if u didn't replace them yet ur defo going to have to

That cars long gone

Nforce

I had my rear brake lines replaced on my E46 too. Funny enough it passed the NCT with weeping lines! Cost me ~€250 to replace them and the job was a bit of a pig requiring the rear subframe and fuel tank being dropped to do the job.

Nissan doctor

The biggest problem with replacing many steel brake lines and the main reason for the seemingly high labour prices is that brake lines are usually the first componant fitted to the chassis when thye car is being made, meaning they run behind and over many other componants.

mondeo

If the op had let the retest time pass, could he have then booked his car for a full test at another testing centre to surely have gotten a pass instead of all that pipe swapping?

Seems alot of cars these days are failing on brake pipe corrosion. I know it's a fierce expensive job. A old lancer runabout I used for work last year failed nct on brake pipe corrosion also. Quotes were €400 to replace pipes and the car was only worth maybe 650 700 odd. Didn't fix it and sold car for scrap.

Crapbag

The thought had crossed my mind to just send it back in again after it failing the retest. Since there would be no specified area to check in the retest, they might have just taken a look and let it through. However, I didnt want to be throwing good money after bad, so I bit the bullet and did the job myself. I can understand why it is so expensive. To replace the full set of lines, we had to drop the tank. It took us the guts of 3 days with waiting for parts. I think a patch and replace job would have been so much easier but they said the lines needed replacement at the center. At that stage I couldnt keep failing it and couldnt afford to send it in for someone else to do it.

CJhaughey

I had a mate that used to sand them back and touch them up with a small can of olive green enamel. Worked wonders.

swhyte027

Nforce wrote: »

I had my rear brake lines replaced on my E46 too. Funny enough it passed the NCT with weeping lines! Cost me ~€250 to replace them and the job was a bit of a pig requiring the rear subframe and fuel tank being dropped to do the job.

I've done plenty of e46 and never had a need to drop the subframe or the fuel thank just loosen the strap on the tank.

john.west

Borderfox wrote: »

Had the same problem with a 3 series coupe, said it had advanced corrosion on one of the brake lines leading to the back brakes. Asked to see the manager and got them to put it up on the ramp to show me and it was muck on the brake line, I have had a couple of run ins with the nct crowd so I just go on the attack from the get go.

Crapbag wrote: »

There was nothing wrong with my lines at all. In fact when I asked where the corrosion was, the Technician got very defensive with me and went on about lodging a complaint. I hadnt even mentioned a complaint, he actually made me mad. I was calm about failing until he opened his mouth.

I have the old lines and I will be lodging a complaint with the NCT now though. I will be looking for the cost of the full re-test back.

Careful not to say too much against the NCTS around here. It would seem to me that there are many only way too eager to jump up on their highhorses to their defense regarsless of the scenario.

I too failed NCT for "corrosion" on the nearside rear brakeline around the start of December last year. I had a nosey around underneath the car when I got home. Seen that the line coming from above the fuel tank was slightly tarnished but certainly not corroded so said to myself they never meant that one surely. Likewise the little joint between metal pipe leading to directly into hub and the rubber brake line was a small bit tarnished, again nothing serious, absolutely structurally sound but assumed they meant this one as it was a wee bit more tanished than afore mentioned line.

Went at it with emery cloth and brasso and got it rightly shined up. Took the car in for retest and tester called me out to show me the line which I assumed they weren't talking about and said it was fu*ked with rust. I went to a few garages to check if they could do the job. None that were equipped to do the job (it seems not all are around my neck of the woods) could do it at that short of notice...It was getting near Christmas at this stage and I only had less than a week left to do retest (otherwise it would be full retest). So at this point I said fu*k it I'll take a chance and attack it with emery cloth, a dremel, and brillo pad. Conditions weren't ideal with snow as have no garage but managed to get it pretty good. Just to add that the brake line was solid out, absolutely structurally sound, at worst slightly tarnished.

I put it through retest. When I was going in I guessed I'd be a lucky boy if I passed, most especially if I got a the same tester. I got a different tester, he put the car up on the ramp and if he looked at the brake line for 5 seconds he looked at it for a long time. Low and behold he passed it!

Also, to add I done the first test in a different location and it failed on rear brake imbalance (think the imbalance was 36% with the acceptable limit being 30% if I recall correctly). I changed the rear brake shoes (probably only needed to adjust them). First retest in the new location the imbalance was down to 6% and I passed on this issue. However, brake test was done again in second retest, as I had supposedly changed brake line, same location as first retest but in a different lane. This time the brake imbalance was 24%??? The car had only covered a maximum of 100 miles since first retest , there was no adjustment whatsoever made to brakes in the meantime and I ensured my tyre pressure in all 4 tyres was 28psi before all tests.

Moral of the story here, NCTS do not calibrate their equipment properly and many of their testers are incompetent dickheads also

George Dalton

I used to have a similar attitude to a lot of posters in this thread when it came to corrosion on metal brake lines. I used to clean and paint them where at all possible.

That as until one day a few years back was doing a pre NCT on a Passat, cleaned up the rear lines and they looked ok, certainly no worse than average. Then on the test drive one of them split. Luckily it happened when I was driving and not the customer, and equally luckily I wasn't in a situation where I needed to stop in a hurry.

Ever since then if there is any doubt about metal brake lines I will replace them. It's just not worth taking the chance.

Borderfox

One particualr time when I was having a re-test they car went in for a full test until I asked the manager what was going on, he checked and said the tester hadnt read the job card. I have had failures before with the NCT and went off to get them fixed and the mechanics have told me and showed me that the offending part never needed replacement or wasnt even on a service schedule for 1-2 years. Its always the same when a company is operating under a monopoly. I would encourage everybody to question why they failed and where is the calibration certificate for the machinery or to have it checked by their own mechanic and lodge a complaint.

Crapbag

I take your point and it does throw a different perspective on my own personal complaints. Having said that however, the level of inconsistancies in the NCT are frustrating to deal with. Now generally you will only ever hear about the failures and the complaints, not the amount of cars that pass. However, speaking to quite a few mechanics, who basically get a large amount of business due to the NCT, they also find the NCT needs an overhaul.

George Dalton wrote: »

I used to have a similar attitude to a lot of posters in this thread when it came to corrosion on metal brake lines. I used to clean and paint them where at all possible.

That as until one day a few years back was doing a pre NCT on a Passat, cleaned up the rear lines and they looked ok, certainly no worse than average. Then on the test drive one of them split. Luckily it happened when I was driving and not the customer, and equally luckily I wasn't in a situation where I needed to stop in a hurry.

Ever since then if there is any doubt about metal brake lines I will replace them. It's just not worth taking the chance.

barneygumble99

the thing is , when u drop a car into brake rollers , u press the pedal , the machine takes a reading and if the reading is below 30% imbalance , that's good enough to pass , but the harder you press the brake pedal , in general , the lower the reading becomes so the result is dependent on how far the pedal is pressed by the driver and not necessarily by the equipment. for example not everyone pulls their handbrake up exactly the same amount of notches every time and the difference between pulling it up 5 and pulling it up six notches would give a different performance rating.

Slidey

The brake readings are done until the rollers knock off. This happens one of 3 ways.

• Brake force is sufficient to stop the rollers
• The vehicle jumps backwards out of the rollers
• A set time is reached where neither of the above conditions is achieved

barneygumble99

Slidey wrote: »

The brake readings are done until the rollers knock off. This happens one of 3 ways.

• Brake force is sufficient to stop the rollers
• The vehicle jumps backwards out of the rollers
• A set time is reached where neither of the above conditions is achieved

brake force doesnt have to stop the rollers or be strong enough to throw the car outta the rollers. if its strong enough to reach its brake force target, you can just drive outta the brake rollers before they lock up.

Slidey

barneygumble99 wrote: »

brake force doesnt have to stop the rollers or be strong enough to throw the car outta the rollers. if its strong enough to reach its brake force target, you can just drive outta the brake rollers before they lock up.

You can, but why would any tester do that?

I never do, you break until you reach the maximum force specified in the manual or until the rollers knock out. Anyway, this is kinda off topic.

I have had a few pipes burst on me when doing break tests, kinda makes you cautious.

BTW, DoE tester not NCT before ye fire up the pitch forks and burning torches

barneygumble99

i only work in a garage , its maha equipment but maha lads are always tellin us not to lock up the rollers if possible, prolongs the lifespan, usually only lock them up for handbrake.

Slidey

We have MAHA gear and my opinion on their service and back up would not be very good!

barneygumble99

we've had no problems with their gear but it wouldn't have the flow through of a doe center using it. expensive though.

jenaynay

Hi,

I also just failed the NCT due to 'advanced corrossion' on the brake lines of my Kia Rio '04. I had two different places do a Pre-NCT check and I had to get some other work done, but both mechanics in 2 different places didn't notice anything about the supposed 'advanced corrossion'. How can two mechanics miss that? I'm starting to doubt what the NCT mechanic failed me on. I'm bringing it to a third mechanic today to see what he thinks.

Is it possible for two mechnics to just miss supposed advanced corrossion on the brake lines? I assume that is very serious to have on your car.

Does anyone know how much it costs to replace them, if necessary?

Do you think I should appeal the NCT if the third mechanic also does not notice it?

ed_202

Just got failed on the same issue myself, on the offside rear line apparently. I havent been able to get under to inspect it yet but hoping its close to the end of the line so i can replace a short section. Talked to a mechanic today and he said it would be about 12e a foot for new line... labour is the expensive part though..