Yesterday when I was driving home from work, my brakes failed on my 2002 Tribute - fun on a Friday afternoon! I had it towed to a local mechanic, and as I suspected from the puddle by my rear tires, it was the brake hose. He says the right hose has broken thru where it bends, and the left one is cracked. Unfortunately I live in BC and there are no Mazda parts warehouses here, so if the local Mazda (or Ford) dealers don't have the parts then they have to come from Ontario. Apparently this is not available aftermarket. I wanted to check on something the mechanic said - we have had a few problems with this car and my husband is getting a little sick of spending money on it, so I wanted to get other peoples opinions before I ok him to do more work.... He says that it looks like the fuid sprayed around the brakes, and that if there is fluid in the pads & rotors when he takes things apart, the safe thing to do would be to replace the whole works, hopefully just machining the drums. Is it possible that this would be necessary? I've learned a fair amount about cars over the years, but I don't know that much about brakes and unfortunately we just moved here and I don't have a mechanic I know I can trust.
Thanks!

 

If you have brake fluid on the brakes and they have been saturated, then the pads/shoes will indeed need to be replaced. BUT,brake fluid can easily be cleaned off any other parts it may have temporarily affected.
The question(s) I would be asking are: 1.why both at the same time? 2. Is there a Technical Service Bulletin about this issue, and 3. why are these not available at any local parts stores? Most brake lines (the hard lines at least) are pretty standard to most vehicles. Hoses could in fact be a different matter. But the AM usually catches up pretty quickly and an '02 is not exactly a new vehicle.

Y'know, I just did a very quick search and found both front and rear brake hoses available for <$19 ea. here: http://www2.partstrain.com/store/?N=...002+brake+hose

And the right and left are the same.