Brake hoses: front vs rear?

Hi Folks, The brake hoses on my 2006 Cayman appear to be original, so are at least 20 years old, and I'm searching for affordable aftermarket replacements - rubber, NOT braided stainless steel ones. Looking at FCP Euro , Pelican Parts , etc, I'm finding plenty of option for quality aftermarket front hoses, but only Porsche branded hoses for the rear, and the price difference is wild: e.g. FCP Euro has ATE front hoses for $23 each, while Porsche rear hoses are $113 each! So my question is this: is there any reason why those ATE front hoses wouldn't work on the rear brakes too? From what I can tell, the front and rear hoses are the same length (approx 305cm not including the fittings at each end), the only difference being that the front hoses are wrapped in a spring, while the rears have a short length of protective insulation in the middle to guard against damage from rubbing against the inner wheel well paneling. Has anyone installed front brake hoses on their rear brakes? Is there something obvious I'm missing that makes this a bad idea? Thanks for your help!

They probably simply won't fit. Goodridge and Spiegler make great hoses. Check them, too.

One say to confirm that the front ones will work on the back is to see if some of the other options, even stainless, are rated for both front and back. I did mine a few years ago so I can’t remember exactly, but I believe I bought a set of four and they could go anywhere.

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Found these at Pelican , see attachment.

Thank you - I appreciate the heads up on those! Unfortunately it seems that they won't ship for 3 weeks and I really hoping to get this job done sooner than that. Interestingly enough, I spoke with the parts department at my local dealership yesterday and they didn't have any rears in stock and only a single unit available to order from their regional supplier, so it seems like there might be an across-the-board shortage right now - strange.

Happy hunting. Hope you can locate some in your time frame.

The Goodrich stainless are really nice, why do you want to stay with rubber.

Good Q. I considered switching to SS hoses but after doing some research it seems like standard rubber OE replacements were perfectly sufficient for a street car. If I was doing regular track days or HPDE events it would probably make sense to upgrade.

One point - SS hoses are not actually stainless steel. They're typically the same type of rubber hose you'd normally use for the application with a woven cover of stainless steel mesh over the hose. If the rubber hose were to get some sort of bubble in it - the outer covering of stainless mesh will keep the expansion (and loss of braking) to a minimum. It also provides limited protection against damage from objects hitting the hose or pinching it. It's certainly not a bad thing to do - but if you feel a difference in braking that's because your old hoses were past their drop-dead date and starting to expand a bit under pressure. Replacing them with new rubber hoses will make it feel better. Replacing them with new "stainless" brake lines will also make it feel the same way.

Something happened my text post #4? Anyway, I went with inexpensive Troutman DOT SS, in stock now, from Pelican (Lifetime warranty!). Installed Jan. 2023. Stripped and zip tied rear protective rubber in place. They appear to be good quality and had no issues during install. It was also time to change brake fluid. I charge brake fluid every 2 years as I do SCCA SOLO (AutoX) and some track days. All good so far, when they fail it's covered. However, because I track my car I will replace before failure. Might be an option for you. Ships tomorrow 🤪 I DO NOT WORK FOR PELICAN PARTS OR FCPEURO . They have saved me $$$ with their warranty program I only wish I knew of it sooner.

I have a 986 Boxster and I installed the Stop Tech SS hoses that have a Teflon hose (not rubbe), SS braid and are DOT approved which is critical if you drive on the street. I do HPDE and street. Cost for all 4 in 2024 was $104 from Carid. I like Stop Tech Sport pads and their hoses looked top notch and I have had no issues. Since I track my car regularly I decided to proactively take care of problems that I have seen happen with other cars on the track. Why get rubber when you can get non-expandable Teflon? Plus they look great. I would also recommend replacing the AOS , thermostat/water pump,and keeping an eye on power steering component.

Thanks @HEB986 ! If I end up tracking the car regularly in the future, the Stop Tech SS look like a great (and very affordable) upgrade. I ended up ordering the rubber PMB Performance OE aftermarket hoses, suggested by @GotBox , directly from PMB. I was told that they have them in stock but they haven't shipped yet so fingers crossed. I'll let ya'll know how it goes. I had the water pump replaced last spring, along with the serpentine belt and thermostat. AOS is next - a project I'm planning on talking myself. The car has 64,500 miles on it so it's time to get proactive on that. Thanks for the heads-up on the power steering too, that wasn't something I had on my radar.

Having a bit of experience with rubber vs teflon in industrial applications.. teflon is fine if you don't bend it sharply. By sharply, at the size a brake line would use - smaller than a 6" radius on unsupported tubing might cause issues. The issue is the tubing when bent too sharply kinks. Rubber over the same radius will simply bend, teflon being stiffer will try to stay straight so it folds in order to get the ends where they need to be. The stainless braiding may make it difficult to make too sharp a bend in the teflon which would be a plus for them. The same braid applied over rubber tubing if sized correctly should prevent it from expanding in cross-diameter due to pressure during extreme brake application.

I generally agree with your assessment, except for the blanket statement on stainless braiding. I had a brief stint designing a catheter where we played a lot with the stainless exterior braiding to manipulate the properties we were looking for (compressive, torsional, hoop strengths). Basically, unless you your tube is wrapped almost like a coil, the sleeve can move and expand more than hydraulics would care for (think Chinese finger trap). I can’t say for sure, but I think the braiding is more for mechanical protection/armor and bend radius than anti-expansion. Now if the inner hydraulic teflon tubing is co-extruded with some reinforcement that would help stiffen it up, but I haven’t cut one apart to say one way or the other (bicycle hydraulic tubing is just fancy plastic, fwiw).

It's been while and I wanted to close the loop on this thread. I wasn't able to find rubber brake hoses for the rear that weren't OEM Porsche branded and crazy expensive, and I decided not to risk trying to use front hoses for the rears, so it turned out the most affordable option was to go with a stainless steel set all the way around from PMB Performance. For future reference, all four hoses were identical - no front/rear designation - and they went on easily enough, although I was a little concerned by how there's no slack in the rear at full suspension droop. They aren't taught and fluid flowed freely when I bled the system, but a couple more centimeters would have been nice. Thanks for all your input and advice!

How do they compare in length to the original hoses, and is the taughtness an issue on both front and back?

I never cease to be amazed at the lengths people will go to get cheap brake replacement parts for an expensive high performance car! Failure of brakes, tyres, or steering at high speed can be lethal, quite apart from terminal for your valuable and prized vehicle.

I never cease to be amazed at the lengths sellers will go to overpriced replacement parts for an expensive high performance car! Sometimes we just want to pay a fair price and not the " Porsche Tax".

I think that, as far as certain parts are concerned it comes with the territory as the price of admission. David

I never cease to be amazed by how readily some folks will drop trou and bend over for anything that has " Porsche " stamped on the box, but hey, to each their own, right?? For the record, PMB Performance is a well-respected brand and there's every reason to believe that these brake hoses will last for the lifetime of my valuable and prized vehicle.

There is nothing magical about each of the components in these cars. Take a coffin arm, for example - cast aluminum, 2 pieces of rubber, and a ball joint. This is not cutting edge manufacturing. Same thing for the brake line. The “magic” in these performance cars lies much more in the design, not the cost of parts. We don’t have carbon monocoque chassis, titanium steering knuckles, 3d printed hollow control arms… fundamentally most of these parts are VERY similar to what is on VW golf, and at least suspension-wise, less complicated/expensive than a Miata . I also push back on this idea that Porsche is fundamentally superior and you have to be a millionaire to even look at one. There are lots of good and more affordable ways to keep these cars going. It is a well engineered car with decisions made regarding build quality that more directly affected the cost to build the car (German labor, more screws than snaps, etc), but the parts themselves are not magic.

Thanks for actually articulating what I was getting at in my earlier and rather crude response. I'm sorry about that - I pride myself on not taking the bait but sometimes I'm caught at the wrong moment I got a bit salty.