Four days before my '03 Escape transmission blew I had the front brake hoses replaced.

I had no idea they were bad until my mechanic inspected them and found they were starting to dry rot. (the rubber hose had small cracks running up and down the hose), he showed me the old ones.

Why the brake lines aren't made of metal is beyond me, I presume because of room, inability to make certain bends and of course price.

Needless to say the person who has my old Escape has brand new front brake lines installed and that makes me feel better after reading this thread since the person who bought it has a family with small kids. He is replacing the blown transmission himself with the help of a friend.

EDIT: My '03 had 161,000 miles on the OD. My mechanic did say that the rear lines were okay when he did the inspection. Wonder why only the fronts were going bad.

 

Some aftermarket brands sell reinforced hoses. The fronts must move more than the rears.

 

My front two hoses blew on my 2005 Ford Escape while I was going 55 mph in a high traffic volume area. I'm so happy that nobody was injured. The wrecker came and was SHOCKED that both went out. My poor little Escape will be towed to the shop next week for repairs

 

See post #5. What you describe is nearly impossible.

 

ProjectSHO90 - Your comment "See post #5. What you describe is nearly impossible"

Just because this has never happened to you does not mean that it is nearly impossible. More importantly - you are missing the entire point of the initial post - which was to raise awareness of a potentially lethal component failure that people should pay more attention to.

There are several incidents being reported about brake line failure on these vehicles. Since my last posting on this subject, we purchased a 2005 Escape XLT for my son. Because of the incident we had with the 2003, the first thing we looked at when we got the '05 home was the brake lines.

The front hoses were severely cracked particularly where the rubber meets the crimped steel end. Needless to say, we replaced all four hoses immediately.

This is not an issue that I had ever been concerned about before, and I do not think I am alone in this category. If this helps to raise awareness and avoid just one accident, then the posting was successful.

I am glad that no one was hurt in your incident boglem!

 

IOur 06' Escape with under 100k blew a passenger front brake line tonight. Luckily we were in a drive through and no one was in front of us. Or worse yet on the highway. The pedal went to the floor. We had it towed home and the driver said he has seen this many times on this generation Escape. I WISH i would have seen this post long ago. I'll inspect the rest tomorrow and replace if needed. Thank you

 

I replaced all 4 brake line hoses on my Escape a few years ago. They were dry rotted. I have never seen any do this in all my years on owning vehicles.

 

Me neither. I replaced both front hoses but the back looked fine. In no way should these brake hoses fail in 7 years.

 

This is horrible for a car that really isn't that old

 

I replaced mine way before they looked this bad. I am just glad I caught it before something happened with another family member driving the car.

 

I will Report this treat to who ever need to be address,
I almost kill myself April 3 2015 at 2:00pm when my
brake hose fail from my ford escape 2005 avoiding a car wreck,

my brake line snap on high pressure when I tried to avoid the other car collation who was doing an illegal U turn, this is a danger matter like other here talk about this bad brake hose failure.

when my car was ending without breaks I was ending stomping my card using the side of the sidewall Pressing the driver side rim to brake the car avoiding the wreck someone cause making an illegal U turn and it was going to direction to hit inside to a restaurant.

FORD company need to take this issue seriously..I
wandering if they have some type of warranty on
brake robber hose lines, I was ending replacing my brake line,
tire lower arm, ball Bering, rim and other parts from the driver
side of my car. can someone help to address this matter
to FORD or anyone in charge to fix this problem, there
will be more people out there driving those danger cars
with bad brakes lines.

Let me share a few pictures of my brake hose and Rim






This is the result of having not brakes and use my car rim to stop the car. not I have to deal replacing my rim. FORD not really its a god help to stop it. they care more about the money then be safe.! I'm looking to replace the rim now and it's costing me $200.00 new plus all the other broken part from my driver side Axel.

 

Sorry to hear about your terrible misfortune, I caught mine while changing brakes and looking around myself. I don't know if it's a ford problem, it's a rubber hose which an fail over time,heat and such.When your vehicle gets inspected or goes for a brake job they should look and tell you this stuff.We post issues here so people can be aware of them and check themselves also.

 

My girlfriend's '02 Tribute just had her driver's side front brake line blow out. "Luckily" it was while driving the kids to school, which is on 20mph side streets. The rear brakes worked well enough to stop and get the car back home (school is only a half mile away).

If it was on my commute to work, I'd really be in trouble as it's highway speeds combined with stop and go.

Upon a close inspection, the brake lines are riddled with cracks and should have been replaced eons ago if someone took the time to spot them. I've only been caring for the car a few months, which until now has just been oil changes and a couple trans fluid changes.

I too, don't consider brake hoses a wear item, especially not here where we don't salt the roads. Had I done a recent service where I had the wheel off, maybe I would have noticed it, but I hardly go looking for failing brake lines. Hell, the rubber lines on my '85 F-250 look new compared to what I found on the Tribute.

This is absolutely pathetic on Ford's part, and they should absolutely be part of a safety recall. I know of no other vehicle whose rubber lines have cracked/broken in this manner, and clearly this is not an isolated incident where a brake hose was routed incorrectly by some hungover assembler on a late Friday shift before a long weekend.

This points to poor engineering, poor product, something that is causing repeat failures on tons of vehicles still in service-- MAJOR safety issue here. This is not a 20+ year old collector car; this is an older model mini SUV whose (generally poorer, due to vehicle age) families are counting on them to get to and from home safely. Unless you can give me examples of cars whose brake hoses are routinely failing after only 10-15 years, I'd chalk this up to a major FAIL on Ford's part.

No need to post pictures, mine looks more or less the exact same as the others-- failure where the rubber meets the metal part.

 

Wow. First I commend ElbowJoe for making this thread and for his restraint when replying to the trolls who basically blamed him for his scary accident or claim what happened to his vehicle is impossible. I expected better from this forum. This thread or this one: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...nspection.html really should be a sticky at the top of the forum.


We came across this thread while looking for any brake bleeding tips or things to watch out for which were unique to the Escape. Why? Because both front brake hoses on my son’s 2005 were in terrible shape and needed replacement. Thank goodness we found them before the catastrophic failure others have experienced. Anyone who wrenches on cars knows that brake hose replacement is rare. I can count on one finger the number of brake hoses I've replaced because deterioration in close to 40 years of diy wrenching on cars and a short time working in a repair shop. From the Ford tech’s warning thread: This shows that the short life of the Escape hoses is something which is not normal and owners need to be alerted to the need for extra vigilance. While I do not expect Ford to recall the vehicles or supply replacement parts, they should be required to notify the owners to check their hoses.

 

Did you actually *look in* the Sticky at the top of this forum? It's already listed in there....