Brake safety

HEGDOG

MEMBER
BUICK CENTURY

I have a 1992 Buick Century with a 3.3 liter engine and 221,000 miles. It has disc brakes on the front and drum brakes on the rear and does not have ABS. It runs very well and I am hoping it will last a few more years, but I have some concerns with the safety of the vehicle because of its age and mileage. Some of the brake lines are rusty and will soon need replaced. My question is if one of the brake lines should develop a leak, will I lose braking ability to all of the brakes? My 1986 Chevy van once developed a leak in one of the brake lines but it had separate fluid resevoirs for the front and rear brakes. So even though I lost braking power to the rear brakes, the front brakes still worked. My Buick only has one resevoir and I am worried I may lose all braking power if one of the lines leak. Is there another safety feature on my Buick that prevents this?

1 Reply

MERLIN2021

EXPERT

Your front drive Century has a diagonal brake system, the left front and right rear are on one reservoir and the right front and left rear are on the other. You will still be able to stop but will need waaayyyy more distance to do it! My advice is to fix the lines BEFORE they piss out fluid! If you have the plastic single reservoir master, you will eventually lose all the fluid!