Xoutpost.com - Heads Up for Brake Line Check

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Heads Up for Brake Line Check

One of my M5 brethren posted this up on M5 Board and thought Id pass it along for those who want to do a quick once over just in case. Want everyone safe over the holiday travel season.

How many of you own X5's also? - BMW M5 Forum and M6 Forums

Have a safe holiday!

Great info. Thanks for sharing.
I know what I'll do tomorrow.

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This is a little off topic for this section but I wanted to post this here so it gets the most exposure. Im a BMW Tech and over the last couple months I have had 2 E53 X5's with a potentially dangerous issue. The brake lines going to the rear calipers rusted and blew out. Both of them experienced the failure in the exact same spot. On the left side of the vehicle there is a long splash panel that runs the length of the rocker. If you remove it you will see the brake lines, there are two there that run down and along the length of the inside of the rocker. Toward the front there is a plastic bracket which holds the lines, two fuel lines, and the vacuum line to the fuel filter. On both of the cars they rotted in the same spot, where they clip in to the plastic bracket. #3 in the pic below is the line and #17 is the bracket they clip into. The strange thing is that these lines are completely covered by the splash panel so they are not getting water/salt/crud constantly flung onto them, though somehow they are rotting. So if any of you guys own an X5 also you might want to take a look at these lines.
http://realoem.com/bmw/diagrams/w/z/61.png
http://i54.tinypic.com/elba03.jpg

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if you can catch it early its an easy fix. little bit a of sandpaper and some undercoat should do the trick.

Might as well just put some undercoat on them. I wonder if Plasti-Dip would work here.

Thanks for the heads up on this one.

That's spooky, I saw mine were corroded a couple of months back and have the new lines sat on the side waiting for me to fit them. I'm a bit tied up with valley pan and valve cover gaskets etc at the moment, they'll have to wait.

I brought my car with me from the UK where we have salt on the roads half of the year f*#king our cars up! And of course you guys over yonder have crappy weather too.. :(

I'll be checking mine out this weekend as well, thanks for the heads up!

Clean them up with wire brush and spray some of that special rust blocker spray paint and throw some undercoat on top.

Thanks for the heads up :thumbup: I will definitely have to check on mine soon. The last brake flush, I noticed both rear calipers were spewing out brown/reddish fluids, but all calipers are properly functional.

Good info, several threads about it here, thanks for the reminder though! So the ultimate driving machine may go like a bat outta hell, but may not be able stop safely when you need it to....lol!!! It's a BMW, are any us really surprised?

Well I decided to dive into this given a quiet weekend and glad I did. Definitely not what I expected with only 47k miles at all. While not bad compared to the pics in link I am definitely glad I tore into it.

BTW...what a PITA to get that splash panel off...didnt have patience to reassemble and have to do some cleaning and prep before I do anyway. Everything beyond the wire loom holder toward the back of the truck is spot clean and no issue everything in front of the loom has the calcification on it.

The panel has to be trapping the moisture, as the frame welds have rust stains as well demostrating a high moisture environment. I have added this to my own list for the X5.