[Brother Michigan]

I removed my Apex braided stainless steel brake lines today that I bought through a group buy here on the forum after a little more than a year and a half on the bike; let me show/tell you why and why I think it's probably a good idea for members to avoid this product.

Just a few months after first installing the lines, I noticed the fittings and banjo bolts were beginning to rust. My bike was stored outside under a waterproof cover for about a year and has been ridden in the rain, but I don't think they should have started rusting like they did as soon as they did, especially when I make sure to dry the bike off after it gets wet. Keep in mind when looking at the pictures that I started regularly rubbing them down with WD-40 shortly after I noticed them starting to rust and they still looked that bad when I took them off.

The second problem, and the one that I find much more serious, is that the coating over the stainless has become extremely brittle and has even begun to crack and flake off the lines. I know that this coating is just there to protect the braiding, but the fact that it has failed after less than two years doesn't give me much hope for the quality of the materials underneath. After I removed the lines, I found them to be very stiff, to the point where it was actually somewhat difficult to bend them. That doesn't seem like a particularly good property for something that's expected to bend and flex with the suspension of the motorcycle.

I brought up the rusting issue with Apex as soon as I noticed it, and they did offer to replace the lines, but not with an identical product (I had blue lines with black fittings and they would only offer clear with stainless fittings). I decided to just deal with the rust issue, but I didn't feel safe with these brake lines on my motorcycle after I noticed the issues with the outer coating.

Anyhow, that is my experience with Apex Brakes' braided stainless lines. I hope the others that bought lines in the different group buys have had better luck (looking around some of the other threads, it looks like I may not be alone in these issues), but I would personally recommend members look elsewhere for their brake line needs. If you're looking for a quality product, I'd go with Galfer or Spiegler (just replaced my Apex lines with Galfer lines), or if you're looking to move to stainless lines on the cheap, just go with a cheap eBay pair; you probably wouldn't be much worse off quality-wise and you'll save about half the price over the Apex lines.

Pictures of lines and fittings attached at the end (may be a little hard to see the cracking in all but the last photo, but both lines show cracks along their entire lengths.)