If Firestone claims it wasn't them, they have a lot of explaining as to why they didn't catch it when they changed you tires. The plastic and rubber on the hose melt from friction. Any mechanic or tire tech breathing and awake should have seen this when they pulled the tires. I would not return to this shop for any work and make sure they know you are unhappy with their lack of safety awareness and will be sure to spread the word.

 

The fact that they told you that such an obvious rub burn was a cut line concerns me and make me think they screwed something up. And the is definitely rubbing against the tire nothing else. The only way I could imagine the the brake line made contact with the tire is that they probably left the caliper hanging during the change and during reinstall turned it around 360 degrees before mounting causing the line to twist and make contact kind or like when your coiling up an old garden house against its coil memory (hard to explain) but your line was rubbing against tire.

 

^^ X2!!

 

x3. We would all be interested in how they try to weasel out of it.

 

While the wear does appear to be caused from rubbing, I would expect it to take some time to cause that much damage. From your original post it doesn't sound like you put much miles on the truck after getting the tires installed by Firestone. You mentioned going from Firestone to the beach but I don't think you mentioned how far away the beach was and your lady friend commented on the brakes on the way to the beach so it sounds like there was an issue right away. I'm really not sure how long it would take to cause that much wear, maybe some of the other members would have a better idea, but it's entirely possible that the wear was caused before the new tires were installed. That being said, even if Firestone aren't the ones that caused the rubbing, they should have noticed that much wear on the brake line in the first place!

 

Sounds awful coincidental, but why would they have even had to touch your caliper for a simple tire change?

 

You got a point. I thought there was brake service at some point because he mentioned loose brake reservoir cap. Maybe this is old damage from a previous owner with oversized tires. Definitely a strange one.

 

It's about a 300 mile trip to and from Edisto when you add in the small amount of drive around mileage.

 

First off, thank God nobody got hurt. 300 miles is plenty of time to wear that hose out. If I was that Firestone manager I would be kissing your rear bumper trying to put this issue to rest. Refund you your repair money back and offer you some free services to offset your inconvienence. I would also terminate the employee that left your truck in such a dangerous condition. A previous post mentioned "a simple tire change". No such thing, a customer is intrusting your safety every single time a mechanic touches their vehicle. This is why so many of us either do our own repairs or go over everything thats been touched by someone else.

 

If this issue was related to a previous repair the tire tech should have caught it when he had the tires off. If that would have happens this store would look like a hero right now. Sorry to say but it always falls back to the last person to be there.