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Warning Boxster Owners Beware!

montoya

montoya

New member
Following a recent incident with my Boxster S, I would like to warn other owners to insist that there vehicle's brake lines are all "physically inspected" during a service. Hopefully this action will prevent you from driving around in a "ticking time bomb", let me explain.

My 2002 MY03 Boxster S experienced total brake failure, fortunately for all concerned no individuals were hurt and the car survived undamaged, upon taking he car to a Porsche specialist for inspection it was found that several brake lines had burst due to severe prolonged corrosion, resulting in a complete and total loss on all of the vehicle's braking systems.

The brake lines in question run on the underside of the car and are hidden from view by a removable plastic cover. When I asked my usual specialist why this corrosion had been missed at the car's last and previous service, I was horrified to be informed that in the "service schedule", there is "no requirement" for this plastic cover to be removed to physically examine the condition of the hidden brake lines, the braking system is just "inspected visually", this even includes a full major service.

Please check you're car you may not be as lucky as me.
 
Jon....I have had a similar issue with my cars' brake pipes recently. At MOT a year ago I had an advisory to say the front n/s pipes showed evidence of powdering (suggesting the start of corrosion) indicating that the plastic outer coating was compromised. To stop it getting worse at service my garage removed this powdering and brushed the pipes with a coating of oil to prevent a re-occurrence. Last week, at MOT again, the car failed on corrosion issues on the same parts of the brake pipes, and in addition further areas of corrosion were found elsewhere mainly along the near side. I decided to replace the entire brake pipe system front and back both sides with non corrosive material (copper). Upon removal of the plastic covers to access all the pipes we found even worse corrosion than that which was normally visible. We believe that once the protective plastic coating is compromised that it is only a matter of time for water to travel between the metal pipe and the coating and so the corrosion begins along the entire length. As you point out the worry is it's not the bits you can easily see, it's the bits behind the panels which never get checked on service/MOT. The big question is why do Porsche use materials for the braking system likely to corrode when they go to great lengths to avoid them when constructing the body panels? As my car is 2003 maybe they have changed the spec in newer cars?
 
To put this into perspective. You were exceptionally unfortunate to have "complete" brake failure. Given that the lines are split to create at least two separate circuits to have both compramised at exactly the same time is deeply unlucky.
 
Isn't this the sort of thing that VOSA should know about to consider a safety-critical recall? Total brake failure ain't supposed to happen and could have been catastrophic for more than just the owner.
 
On my vehicle the trapped dirt and debris under the cover seemed to consist of a cement like substance, presumably the lime content then accelerated the corrosion. As you can see from the photo's both circuits run closely together under the plastic cover, resulting in both lines failing at approximately the same time.

72E5604DC8A1440495046686A758EBEC.jpg
 
Well Montoya I have been playing around with cars for longer than i care to remember
and do not recall seeing anything like that other than on a 30 year old banger.
I hope the pipes on my Cayenne are not likely to be the same as it is almost as old as yours.
I think one should raise it with VOSA at least it might alert the MOT boys .
 
Thanks for all the replies,

Could anybody now advise me how I would go about informing VOSA about the brake lines?
 
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