Brake line, hose or caliper failure on the 2002 Chevrolet Silverado 1500
1 crash 1 of the 43 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When brake line, hose or caliper failure gets reported
Owners of the 2002 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 report brake line, hose or caliper failure at a median of 125,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 97,500 miles and a quarter after 150,000 miles, from 41 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 115,000 miles. It is the 4th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 82,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 172,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 90,315 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 81,685 miles | 96,457 miles | 124,304 miles | 150,000 miles | 172,000 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 a crash is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $250–$1,600 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 13 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 35,000 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 180,000 miles.
By volume the 2003 carries the most reports, with 95; the 2002 has 43. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
After driving 400 miles to laurel springs ,nc from baltimore ,md through mountain roads and arriving at our destination my wife parked our truck , we got out to go in and open up the house. I then went back to the truck and got in to move it closer to the house to unpack our belongings for a weeks vacation. I started the vehicle and placed it in drive only to have the brakes go all the way to the floor . I then took a flashlight and had my son pump the brake pedal and brake fluid was gushing from the brakeline. I took a file and scraped what looks like little balls of rust and behind the ten or so balls found a hole the size of ball point pen tip.I then spent two days replacing the brake line form parts at the not so close auto zone. I find it hard to believe that 8 year old brake lines would rust that badly , I've had 20 year old vehicle s that didn't have brake lines rust out. I'm just lucky that the line broke after getting to my destination and not on the mountain roads we were traveling. I have the old brake line but left it at the house in nc. *tr
Corroded brake lines caused the failure of both front and rear brakes at the same time. Inoperable rear emergency brakes provided no emergency stopping ability. Replaced brake lines. Emergency brake not repaired. I understand that trucks with manual transmissions were recalled for emergency brake defect correction, but trucks with automatic transmissions were not eventhough they have the same emergency brake system. My vehicle has an automatic transmission. Not certain when emergency brakes became inoperable, but my guess is around 2004 or 2005, with 60k to70k miles. Brake line rupture was in 2009 at 156k miles. *tr
Corroded brake lines caused the failure of both front and rear brakes at the same time. Inoperable rear emergency brakes provided no emergency stopping ability. Replaced brake lines. Emergency brake not repaired. I understand that trucks with manual transmissions were recalled for emergency brake defect correction, but trucks with automatic transmissions were not eventhough they have the same emergency brake system. My vehicle has an automatic transmission. Not certain when emergency brakes became inoperable, but my guess is around 2004 or 2005, with 60k to70k miles. Brake line rupture was in 2009 at 156k miles. *tr
Also reported on the 2002 Chevrolet Silverado 1500
Loss of braking
Other brake problem
ABS module or sensor failure
Parking brake failure
Rust or structural corrosion
Other body or interior problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 43 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does brake line, hose or caliper failure happen on the 2002 Chevrolet Silverado 1500?
Across 41 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 125,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 97,500 miles and a quarter after 150,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is brake line, hose or caliper failure on the 2002 Chevrolet Silverado 1500?
43 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.4 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed