Certain General Motors full-size vehicles are being investigated by the NHTSA for possibly faulty brake lines after the safety agency received 890 complaints of brake failure caused by “brake pipe corrosion.”
According to an NHTSA report, an investigation was launched on March 30, 2010 after numerous complaints were received of corroding brake lines. The investigation was closed on January 5, 2011, but was reopened again the same day and remains open today. Models with potentially faulty brake lines include the Chevrolet Silverado, Avalanche, Suburban and Tahoe and GMC Sierra and Yukon ranging from model years 1999-2003. In total, more than 6 million vehicles could be affected by the problem.
Of the 800 complaints the NHTSA received, 760 were from ‘Salt Belt’ states, where heavy amounts of road salt are used during winter months. In 25 percent of complaints, the brake pipe failure occurred suddenly with no warning lights displayed and resulted in reduced stopping power. In 26 complaints, the reduced braking performance was an alleged factor in a crash and in 10 others, the driver had to steer off the road to avoid a collision with another vehicle. So far, three injuries have been reported as a result of the crashes.
GM has yet to act on the alleged problem. According to the NHTSA’s investigation summary, the automaker says the subject vehicles have a brake system which is split front/rear and if a brake pipe did suddenly fail, the vehicle would be capable of stopping with the pressure supplied by the remaining pipe. Additionally, the circuits were design to meet “partial failure requirements” in place at the time. GM also added that if brake fluid did leak for any reason, the brake system malfunction light would illuminate on the dash and warn the driver before it became low enough to affect braking.
The NHTSA’s investigation into the matter is ongoing.
Comments
At what point will this end? Are cars not allowed to rust? I live in eastern Canada and you can find vehicles as new as 3-4 years rusted through sheet metal and bumpers in any parking lot. Good luck finding many trucks around here older than 2003 that will still pass inspection unless the owner has taken good care of it – that goes for any brand not just the General.
Vehicles are allowed to rust, what’s not allowed is for the breaks to SUDDENLY stop working like what happened with us when our whole family (children and all) were in the vehicle. We just had the breaks serviced less than 7 days prior, should it have been caught then, perhaps. Thank GOD we were not coming down the mountain pass like we were the day prior, or we would all be dead. We lost COMPLETE control of our vehicle and absolutely NO breaks, it was like pushing on a marshmellow. Scary as heck and your comment is completely ill thought. No JOKE joker…
I suddenly lost all my brakes on my 2004 Silverado while stopping at a crosswalk for pedestrians. The brake line going to the rear axle broke under the cab and left me with no brakes, the brake pedal went right to the floor, I am not sure if the low brake fluid light was on as I was too busy avoiding the people crossing the road. I was lucky to miss the pedestrians as I went through the cross walk and stopped the truck with the parking brake. I did not have any limited braking ability as GM is claiming I should have had as the braking system is supposed to be compliant with Transport Canada 135 Standard “Braking System for light duty vehicles”. Vehicles with single compartment master cylinders are supposed to be able to stop numerous times with one brake line rupture, this information is clearly explained in the standard, a similar standard exist for the US. I lost all the braking force immediately. GM has made several statements that this is not a safety issue as the vehicle is complaint with these brake design standards. General Motors needs to do some testing on these older trucks, cut the break line going to the rear axle and see how the braking systems works with a single fault, be careful you wont be able to stop with the brakes. If you own one of these trucks 1999-2007 and have not had a brake line break due to rust, you better crawl under your truck and have a look, they are likely pretty rust and soon to break. If you have one brake I doubt you will have any brakes. This is a scary situation rusty brake lines and a redundant braking system does not work, and GM is in denial of this issue. It seems many people are replacing the brake lines and bleeding the system and consider the braking system fixed, the redundant braking issue is a huge safety issue that needs addressing.
Why has GM stopped using galvanized steel brake lines? IT seams that GM has spent more money defending a substandard coated steel line than the additional money for a galvanized product! GM truck frame rot is another can ow worms.
GM made the NHTSA look foolish in the ignition debacle when they said that even NHTSA couldn’t find a correlation between the ignition and accidents and now the NHTSA is on a witch hunt against GM.
This is getting quite pathetic actually. At some point these have to become a maintenance issue just like shocks, brake rotors and pads, etc that would degrade faster due to environmental conditions like high salt usage on roads.
So 800 complaints and 1 crash and 10 other potential crashes. So in 6 million vehicles, that’s a .013% issue rate (using the 800 complaints). And that is enough to warrant an investigation?
The NHTSA is getting to be an embarrassment.
GM lost its excuse to build garbage when it received so much tax money. The fact they are finally being held accountable is a good thing.
The other truck with rust problems? The 2014 Silverado! Owners are finding major corrosion on the frame and suspension components on trucks that are less than a year old. There is a TSB for the issue, so GM knows it’s a problem. If frames are rusting this much already I bet we will hear about broken frames soon.
Hey look, the RODENT came out to play!!
The issue the RODENT is talking about is the wax coating on the truck frames. There is a forum discussion he found on the wax coating coming off and the frames having surface rust. GM does have a TSB out for a certain production run where the coating wasn’t administered properly.
Just for you info RODENT, both Ford and Ram have forum discussions too on rusting frames and other underneath components like suspension parts, drive shaft, axles, etc (again, surface rust) as well as Toyota. Any vehicle with a steel frame will have surface rust form as stones and road debris will wear off both wax coatings and paint from frames. Then add the road salt on 1/2 the North American highways for 6 mths of the year and there you have it…..surface rust.
My 2000 Silverado I had for over 7 years (up until I purchased my new 2013 last July) had the wax coating gone and surface rust on the frame for years and guess what….. the frame never rusted through.
Once again magirus, you’re making a mountain out of a rodent hill.
Hey, speaking of tax money, your beloved RAM took a huge chunk of money and the tax payer lost a lot on that bailout also. So I guess Ram/Dodge should be held more accountable for their garbage vehicles (since the RAM has forum discussion on rusting undercarriages too).
And Ford took billions in government backed loans (which a very large chunk were not repaid) a couple years before the GM/Dodge bailouts. So perhaps you should be all over their forums talking about the rusty undercarriages their vehicles will have too.
But wait they sold 8,000 diesels and are going to dominate the market.
Oh sorry they sold 8,000 Diesels to the dealers who only had 400 presold.
So much for the revolution.
Moral, Never take pick up truck advice from someone not living in North America.
The reality is GM truck since the 1960’s have been the most rust free trucks on the market.
Ford has been and still the most rust prone as has Dodge.
The truth is any vehicle over 10 years old in a rust belt are is prone to have a brake line failure. They all are made of mild steel and I have seen them fail and I have replaced them on nearly all makes and models.
To be honest the worst of all trucks have been the Toyota’s of the same era late 90’s and early 2000’s. They had issues of not just losing brake lines but also rusting in half. The local dealers here were quietly buying them back for a short while till the numbers grew past their good will.
A co worker of mine had one and it snapped in half and all the dealer would say is your truck is one year out of their interest, It was so broken driving on a City street that it has to be flat bedded away.
This is just another of many stories that would never even have been heard of if it had not been the over play of the ignition issue.
FYI dpach it is not a Mountain out of a rodent hill. Trolls build mountains out of steaming heaps of BS.
I have a 2003 Duramax and it is by far the rottenest vehicle I’ve even owned. Rockers,bed,bumpers,fuel lines @ $1,700.00 and they replaced with the same crap, rotten tranny line started leaking while I was 300 miles from home,brake lines that blew out when I was on a 2 lane in northern NY. All under 120,000 miles! And the dealer never noticed any of the rotten holes anyplace.
Every line on this truck is a $300.00 repair.
Junk every line on this truck was pure junk.
Stopping power gets a 3 rating with good lines. Once my brake line blew I had to swerve to miss the cars in front of me at 35 mph.
I have a 2003 Silverado, that I tow a car trailer with, I have never had a bad line as a matter of fact I just replaced the rear brakes after 79,000 miles. That is the first thing I have had to do to it. I think some of you guys need to learn where your nearest car wash is and clean them once in a while. Either that or buy foriegn and stop bugging the rest of us.
I had this problem in September of 2013 – premature corrision of the brake lines. I have a 2003 Yukon Denali. My wife was driving the truck when the brakes went. Luckily she was shopping within eye distance of the dealership and limped in with the truck’s brake pedal practically to the floor. It was a $1,231.00 repair (parts, labour and tax) for all new lines and the ‘universal’ unit that links the fronts and the rears. The service representative took me to the service bay area and the technician showed me the corrosion particularly evident in the front lines. Why GM runs the lines right along the front of the vehicle undercarriage is a mystery to me. It’s just going to be exposed to salt and sand pitting! I live just north of Toronto Ontario Canada and we use a lot of salt and sand up here in the winter months. I think it’s a case of poor engineering and it leads to premature corrosion. Things do rust, but I get this truck sprayed with Krown Rustproofing every year. My 12-year old 1995 Tahoe never had this problem when I sold it to buy the 2003 Denali. My guess is that the brake lines were run differently on the older Tahoe.
The 99-2003 trucks had premature brake line failures a long time ago so please don’t read that this is a problem just popping up. Why did it stop in 2004? For the same reason the air bag deployment problem went away in 2007. Parts were upgraded and GM has yet to accept any responsibility for this block of vehicle production failing prematurely. Their answer has been to describe a two sided system (standard since the 60’s) that will allow the vehicle to stop should a line erupt, is tap dancing around the ultimate problem.
We purchased our Yukon new in 2003 and it has been based in Charlotte NC for its entire service life. When the rear brake line erupted last month and my wife and two kids coasted through a stop sign and finally stopped in a church parking lot, it stirred a lot more emotion than I can replicate with words.
I have a 99 sierra 1500. Right now my truck is in the shop for it’s second replacement of rotted brake lines. Just talked to the dealer and they don’t have a better replacement than what they put in 7 years ago. Seems they rot out in Northern New Jersey every 7 – 8 years. My buddy just had his replaced last year on his 2005 Silverado. He got plastic/rubber coated ones which my dealer says they don’t have. Both times when they ruptured I was lucky. 1st time was in my buddy’s garage and just replaced the front brake pads, push in the brake pedal and pow. Flooded his garage floor with brake fluid. 2nd was backing up the truck to a wood pile and pedal went to the floor. This is ridiculous and possibly very dangerous. GM should take responsibility for this. These are brake lines. The main stopping power of these vehicles.
We have taken impeccable care of our Big Bertha (Yukon Denali XL) and had the breaks serviced less than 7 days prior. From what we’re being told, this was impossible to catch until it happened. This may be an older vehicle, but again it has been serviced very regularly and very well maintained. We were not expecting to have to Fred Flintstone our vehicle to stop, it’s a scary event when your kids are sitting in the back seat of a vehicle that weighs as much as ours does. This should not have happened and someone should be held responsible, for we as good vehicle owners have done our job to take care of our dear truck. We have never had problems with her and why would we want another vehicle payment??? (this is in follow-up to my response to Iceman above). We live in central Virginia and have no rust on this vehicle whatsoever, so your point is moot. 🙁
I blew out my brakes coming home from a Boy Scout trip this morning. Attempted to stop at a traffic light and heard a pop and then I had NO BRAKES. WTH??? 1999 Chevy Silverado Pick-up. 🙁
Was leaving the parking lot and braked when the light changed ahead. Good thing I was not going that fast as the brakes suddenly went out. My foot went to the floor and the dash lit up with the brake warning light and the audible alert going off! Luckily it was slightly uphill just prior to the light or I would have ended up in the intersection. There was NO warning or soft brakes, just a sudden loss. I got out and checked under the truck and saw that the brake fluid was pouring out onto the ground on the drivers side just behind the driver’s door. The truck is a 2003 Chevy Silverado 1500 LS Extended Cab. It’s getting a full set of new brake lines and having the system flushed. There was a creamy looking fluid which my experience indicates “water” or some kind of moisture in the line. Brakes are a ‘closed’ system; moisture shouldn’t be there. I’ve worked on many vehicles over the years but this is the first time I’ve seen brake fluid look like that!
Fuel lines, brake lines and steering components should be manufactured to the highest quality standards because if any of these fail while operating the vehicle it could result in death. GM, as well as other manufacturers continue to squeeze their suppliers for lower prices so they can pay stock holder dividends and executive bonuses. When GM Divisions made there own components the cost to take care of quality issues hit the bottom line of GM. Suppliers are responsible for the quality of the products they provide. Some of these companies auto manufacturers are purchasing parts from would go bankrupt if they were held accountable for warranty and lawsuit issues. Although zero defects is the goal quality issues must be identified in house before it reaches the customer. Even if these components passed GM’s initial PPAP quality issues could arise at any time during production. I have never owned a vehicle where the brake lines rusted through until I purchased a 2003 GMC Sierra. Several issues need to understood, either the suppliers manufacturing processes are not capable of staying in specifications, the supplier is not environmentally testing the brake lines to determine if they are meeting specification, or the specifications for brake line integrity is too loose or not measured appropriately. Regardless of why these components are getting out, GM either does not know the root cause of the problem for these failures or they know and are unwilling to accept responsibility on top of other quality issues and costs they are facing, such as the ignition issue. People don’t buy the components, they buy the vehicle and hold the name plate manufacturer accountable.
Lost all breaks when break line front and rear went no no warning emergency brake cable was frozen lucky to be alive
2006 Yukon XL with 150K miles on it, I just found out about this documented problem the hard way. The front brake line ruptured along the way the other morning while I was driving on the highway, no warning, no “extra reserve” that will help you stop, just pedal to the floor and hope for the best. It wasn’t a “slow leak and the red light comes on warning you that the brakes need to be checked”. The post I read about these vehicles having a dual sided system where in the event one side ruptures the other side will allow you to stop safely, that is a load of garbage. When my brake line blew, its was over, the pedal went to the floor and you have minimal at best stopping power. I had checked the brake fluid just before leaving (we had a few hours to drive), and it was full, and the brakes were operating properly, for the time being as it turns out. Shortly along the way that morning the brake line ruptured and the brake fluid leaked out fast without being noticed. After getting the vehicle stopped on the side of the highway, I checked the master cylinder and it was bone dry. We were lucky that I had plenty of room and distance to slow down and pull over, it could have gone real bad very easily. What a freaking disaster and it appears by reading this site and the safercar.gov site it has been brewing with these GM vehicles for several years. The line that burst was the one that goes to the front passenger side. It runs form mid-vehicle up the drivers side across the bottom of the radiator to the passenger front wheel. After finding the spot were it burst (just below the radiator on the drivers side), I noticed this part of the brake line was completely corroded. So I bought the replacement kit off of Amazon for $80, its a AC Delco kit that has the lines pre-bent and a coating on the lines, unlike the original, so obviously someone knows there is a corrosion problem with material used on the original lines. Replaced the corroded line. What a pain in the ass that was, I like working on my cars, but that repair was a nightmare and it took hours and two people to replace one line. The brake lines and the entire underside of these vehicles for that matter are susceptible to heavy corrosion. I currently own 5 vehicles, some older and some newer than my Yukon: 2 GM’s, 2 Honda’s and a Mazda, none of the other vehicles are rusting out like the Yukon. Hopefully GM has addressed these problems in their new designs. I did not know about the brake line problem until it happened to me and did not realize so many other GM owners are having the same problem. I did not know I needed to thoroughly inspect every inch of brake lines on the Yukon, I have never had this problem with any vehicle I have ever owned. The sections of brake lines you can see look to be OK, some rusting, but not totally corroded thru like the section under the radiator. I did go ahead and inspect at all of the brake lines while I had the Yukon up, there is another major corroded area on top of the frame on the drivers side, but you can’t see it unless you peel back the lining of the drivers wheel well. Pretty scary to think this problem is out there and could happen to any of these GM vehicles at anytime. I will be checking this site and also safercar.gov more often now. GM and/or NHTSA should be notifying the owners of the problematic vehicles about the brake lines corroding and failing even if GM is not going to pay for fixing the problem.
I have a yukon Denali 2003 150,000 and was hauling a 16 foot trailer with iron to take to the scrap yard when my brakes failed. I had 4000 pounds and GM’s back up system sucks. My pedal went straight to the floor and thank God I had trailer brakes that locked up or I might have killed the person stopped in front of me. I agree that brake lines should have to be made from a material the us resistant to rust. I have a 2002 Honda Odyssey 230,000 that has no corrosion at all. Brakes lines can obviously be manufactured not to rust.
I had a 2003 Yukon Denali as well and I had to replace the brake lines. Luckily, my wife (who was driving it at the time) was very close to the dealership. Had I known that these brake lines would be exposed to winter sand and salt and rust and pit the way they did, I would have sprayed them with some rubber protectant – the stuff that is used on evestrough. GM obviously had an engineering design defect (where the lines are located) and a materials problem
I had a 99 GMC Sierra 3 door Xtra cab 4×4. Brake lines failed twice. First at 83,000 miles in 2006 when I replaced the front brake pads in my buddy’s garage. As soon as I hit the brakes to start the engine, foot went right to the floor and brake fluid all over my friends garage floor. Dealer charged me $1300 to replace all the lines. Had opened a case with GM that went no where. Even mailed them a piece of the rotted out line. That lasted until 2014 with 157,000 miles. Just loaded up the truck with split wood. Started the engine, drove about 15 feet when I tried to apply the brakes and foot when right to the floor. Thank god I was going slow and on a slight incline. Dealer now wanted $1200 just to patch the broken part but the lines were all rotted out again. Brought it up again with GM, nothing. Ended up donating the truck to Breast Cancer Society and purchased a 2014 Dodge Ram.