At the risk of boring you with all the details I will give you the whole story.

After many months of preparation an arranging of financing 2 partners and I
launched ******** 1 year ago. We had high hopes for the company which we
advertised as MAGIC WAGON SPECIALISTS. We hired an experienced Chrysler tech
and started an intensive promotional campaign to attract the necessary
customers. After a few months we found that we were finding an inordinate
number of cracked front brake hoses on Caravans and Voyagers. 

The problem starts as a small crack in the outer cover of the hose right
above the securing bracket on the front strut. 

This is caused, I believe, largely by that securing bracket, which
restrains the hose and causes most of the flexing due to suspension movement
to occur at one place on the hose. This cracked outer cover causes the inner
woven pressure containment to be subjected to additional flexing and
possibly weathering and it in turn eventually fails allowing the inner fluid
transferring tube to rupture through the crack.. 

This situation of course is most likely to occur when the hose is subjected
to maximum pressure as in emergency braking. 

We searched all the Chrysler literature that we had available and could
find no reference to a problem of this nature. I talked to my brother who
works on C.C. vehicles in CA and he assured us that brake hose failure was
not a problem there so it is my guess that the problem is partially due to
the outer casing becoming too rigid in our cold climate. 

We determined that we found cracks on over 15% of the pre '92 C.C. minivans
that we inspected and as a result felt that we were justified in sending out
a "Safety Bulletin" to Caravan and Voyager owners in our area recommending
that they have the hoses checked for cracks. 

Chrysler got a hold of the bulletin and their lawyer fired off a blistering
letter to us demanding among other things:
*That we distribute a retraction letter to all those same owners stating that
we were completely incorrect in sending out the bulletin and that we
confirmed that there was no such fault.
*That we immediately discontinue the use of the term Magic Wagon, or any
other C.C trade names, trade marks or logos of C.C. in our advertising.
*That we immediately discontinue the use of any pictures of C.C. vehicles in
any of our advertising.
*That we provide them with copy of our mailing list and information as to
its source.
*That we reimburse C.C. for their costs with respect to this matter. 

As our company is only just making it and we could in no way sustain the
cost of fighting a long and expensive legal battle we are about to throw in
the towel and close the company.
	
That is the sad tale. 

The fact however still remains that all these pre '92 C.C. minivans are
running around with front brake hoses that are going to fail and someone is
going to get killed. We have a list of some 25 serial numbers of vans that
we have found cracked hoses on including two that had suffered brake system
failures as a result.

As far as I can tell the SAE spec number for the earlier hose is different
from those now being fitted. Perhaps that is one place to look for information.

I have been working on cars and aircraft for 30 years and have never had to
change this type of hose after only 5 or 6 years of service and then never
for failure due to cracking. My specialty is Austin Healeys and many of them
are still running around with brake hoses that are 30 or 40 years old.
Furthermore we have never found a rear brake hose ckacked on any of these
vehicles.

I have only one problem with this being posted on the net and that is that
the legal battle is still on going and I would very much like to remain
anonymous at least as far as the net is concerned until after that is over.
Therefore please edit out any reference to my name or ******** before you
post it.

Regards.