On Tue, 22 Sep 1998 00:39:59 Barney Gaylord <barneymg@ntsource.com>
writes:
>At 10:23 PM 9/21/98 -0400, Unger, Larry G wrote:
>I may be simply stating the blatantly obvious here, but what else
>would one
>expect a purveyer of fine products to say in an open market place? It
>states very clearly that Lockheed does not market silicone brake
>fluid. Would anyone expect Lockheed to go out of their way to hawk the
>competitor's snake oil when they have a vested interest in selling
>their own?
No, probably not. But I'd almost bet the farm that if Lockheed has
evaluated Silicone brake fluid (which it would seem they have), and if
it were superior to DOT4, then Lockheed would be selling it, under their
brand name, and "hawking" it.
Lockheed also has a vested interest in maintaining their reputation,
because failure of brakes for whatever reason reflects badly on the
component manufacturer.
> Perhaps one should look for a report of similar style from a
>manufacturer of silicone brake fluid, just for a fair comparison.
>There are such things you know.
Well, using the same criteria in your first paragraph, a report from the
manufacturer of silicone fluid would show a bias for their product. After
all they would have a vested interest in promoting their "snake oil"
What we'de end up with then is two opposed viewpoints, and nothing to
sort the chaff from the wheat.
Better would be a head to head analysis done by an independent concern
(such as Consumer Reports) with no axe to grind.
>As for myself, I thought my original message was quite clear. I have
>just
>finished running a MGA through a reasonable lifetime of service using
>Silicone brake fluid, and have experienced absolutely none of the
>noted bad symptoms. My car runs at high speeds on the highway in all
sorts of
>weather, tows a trailer for half it's travels, runs a generous portion
>of gravel roads (ingested dirt), and does a lot of autocrossing on
>weekends.
>And for those concerned about altitude problems, it has been up Pikes
>Peak twice with no brake problems. If this silicone brake fluid has any
>bad attributes at all, I would be pretty hard to convince.
>Notice: This is not intended ot be a testimonial for silicone fluid,
>just a
>plea for people to apply reasonable logic and not jump too high when
>someone yells "wolf". And in the interest of fair comparison, I did
>say
>that I had just switched my car over to DOT4 brake fluid. I feel
>pretty
>impartial. At the moment I have nothing bad to say about either DOT4
>or DOT5.
Like you, Barney, I'm somewhat ambivilant toward Silicone.
We use it in the race cars primarily due to the higher boiling point.
But, the fluid is flushed and refilled after about 3 races (4 if they're
short), and the system is "re-sealed" once during the season and in the
off-season.
I don't run it in my street cars, because of the reported problems, and
haveing had one catastrophic brake failure, I go out of my way to avoid
even the possibility of another. I will admit I have never heard of a
catastrophic brake failure due to silicone, but, then again, I'm
chicken.
Rick Morrison
72 MGBGT
74 Midget
>Barney Gaylord
>1958 MGA with an attitude
>
>
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