Stainless Steel Brake Hoses and Upgraded Brake Fluid - experiences

mark seeker

Member
 London
In preparation for the summer season / roadtrips I need to do the usual oil and brake fluid service. I was thinking of replacing the existing brake pipes with some Goodridge stainless steel hoses and some Motul 660 fluid. I just wondered if anyone else had gone down a similar route and noted much difference from OEM?

https://www.goodridge.co.uk/products/car-brake-kit-for-bmw-z4m-coupe-e85-and-e86-3-2-2002-2008?variant=12763337228353
 
Fluid, yes. I don’t have a clue about hoses but can’t see how they’d make a perceptible difference over the rigid factory lines. I got mine for looks and ease of maintenance.

Try and find someone who has done this as a single day test -

1. Replace all brake rotors, pads, OE brake hoses and fluid. Bleed using factory procedure and drive controlled test route
2. Replace all brake rotors, pads, fluid and change hoses to braided stainless. Bleed using factory procedure and drive controlled test route

Then the world will finally know. :lol:
 
for me, the best way to improve braking performance is brake pads first, then brake fluid, larger/vented discs, and lastly hoses.

i've been doing trackdays in various bmws over the years, and have been happy with the braking performance from just pads and fluid - never felt the need to deviate to bigger discs, or change the hoses.

for spirited road driving, decent pads and fresh standard fluid will be fine. if you plan on doing long alpine descents then i'd maybe upgrade the fluid to higher temperature stuff, but otherwise, i'd save the money for things that do make a noticeable difference, like tyres.
 
Braided brake hoses make no significant difference to brake performance nowadays as modern flexible brake pipes are internally fibre reinforced and don't balloon under pressure.
 
For 70 quid it's worth it as the originals are getting on a bit, you might notice a slight difference in pedal feel but it depends how sensitive you are to these things
 
mark seeker said:
In preparation for the summer season / roadtrips I need to do the usual oil and brake fluid service. I was thinking of replacing the existing brake pipes with some Goodridge stainless steel hoses and some Motul 660 fluid. I just wondered if anyone else had gone down a similar route and noted much difference from OEM?

https://www.goodridge.co.uk/products/car-brake-kit-for-bmw-z4m-coupe-e85-and-e86-3-2-2002-2008?variant=12763337228353

I did exactly this about three months ago. Fitted Goodridge braided hoses (originals looked worn out), Hawk HPS 2.0 pads all round with Motul 660 fluid. The discs were new on the rear and covered 4k miles on the front.

To be honest I noticed no discernible difference on the road, possibly increased initial bite and the pads have consistent stopping power but this is only noticeable when braking multiple times in a row.

I have now covered 500 miles with this setup and will be removing it in a few weeks to fit 4 pot calipers up front to hopefully get more feel from the brakes as right now they just feel numb.
 
Many thanks for everyone's feedback on this, I think I will go for just replacing the brake fluid with the Motul 660 and see how I get on, the existing brake fluid is almost 3 years old now so a refresh won't hurt.

I'm holding off a BBK for now...
 
I did brake pads, performance fluid and brake lines before my big brake kit. I did see an improvement over completely stock with the first option. More stamina and slightly better bite, feel was pretty much the same as stock as far as i could tell. :idunno:

Then when taking the car to track i could still overheat the upgraded setup so went to a big brake kit and never had any brake worries since. Of course in hindsight i think most of my issues were with poor technique and overdriving... Still happy with my BBKs though
 
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