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Cost of rent brake line replacement

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by DC2010, Jul 24, 2024 at 10:45 PM.

  1. DC2010

    DC2010 New Member

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    Location:
    Bufflalo NY
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
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    Two
    Make that rear brake line, not rent! While doing some other work, dealer noticed rear brake line leak. I also see fluid on my garage floor in that area. They wanted over $2k to replace the brake line which they said requires fuel tank drop and some other access issues. It’s a 2010 Prius.
    This seems outrageous and I doubt it requires 8-10 hours labor. So few questions:
    1) what’s a reasonable cost?
    2) who besides dealer can do it (independent, muffler/brake shop etc). I’ve read all kinds of tricky gotchas about performing the work so not sure if it takes special skill.
    3) are there repair options, rerouting lines etc?
     
  2. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    First you might want to look at the situation with your own eyeballs in your driveway without somebody breathing down your neck are you leaking from the little ferrule that screws into the caliper that's the thing that squeezes the rotor to stop your car with the pad sandwiched in between the rotor or does the leak look like it's coming from further inside that caliper where there's a seal and a rubber that can well wear out shouldn't be in this early stage of the game but it's possible or are you in a rust belt Do you see physical rust on the break tube It's a little eighth inch looking piece of tubing that screwed into the brake caliper and then it takes off up the chassis of the car I think going up above the gas tank and running in a plastic raceway that runs all the way up to the front of the car and curves up the firewall so that brake line will be pretty lengthy and go from way up front of the car all the way above the gas tank and then shoot over to the right or left side depending upon which wheel the line is going to. I'm banking the calipers leaking or you live in a rust belt and there's rust on the brake lines and literally a line is dripping but if that was the case you'd be starting to lose fluid pretty quickly or the leak is microscopic only you can look and see this stuff or you can drive it around to a few mechanic shops and meineke brake places and whatever and see how many different stories you get replacing the brake line will be costly with the tank drop undoing the raceway pulling the line out of the raceway and undoing it from the block of aluminum which is either your actuator or the other part of your brake system that has the lines connected to it and then pulling it down on doing it from the rear wheel getting it off of all the little clips and guides and getting it to the ground without further bending it and damaging it too much and then you have to buy a straight piece of brake line I think and you'll bend the brake line to the shape that's laying on the ground of the old line now you'll use a brake line bender to do this It's not very complicated You want to make sure you're using the bender so you don't kink the line without having done this before you will definitely need the bender it's a handheld circular thing with stops on it It has an instructions You can look at people doing it on YouTube so when you think about the steps involved $2,000 doesn't seem too too unreasonable pretty quickly I would say with the tank drop and that sort of thing it's an easy four to six hour job possibly I can get the tank out reasonably quick but then getting the line out getting it undone from the brake part up in front of the car from the caliper in the rear getting it out reasonably smartly without destroying it so I can bend up the new one I'm not sure whether you can buy the line from Toyota pre-bent if that's the case I would imagine that's about a $200 line You should check with the Toyota dealer He can point it out to you on the computer It's pretty clear I'm not sure if there are sublines that go from the chassis of the car with a fitting right to the caliper but there may be subflexible hoses so are you leaking from the flexible hose or actual metal line so there's some things for you to look at and do if that's a thing.