Silicon heater hose?

[BrdWAtti2d]

Anyone have any experience with silicone hose? I need to replace my heater hoses and from what I've read silicone is the way to go, but I have a couple questions. I searched for posts on the subject but wasn't able to find anything.

First, is it really the way to go?

Second, I can buy the hose in bulk, but of course it's all straight tubing, is it flexable enough to bend without kinking in a heater hose configuration? I plan on leaving the metal tubing sections in place and just cut off the crimp-on connection and replace the hoses with the silicone hose using hose clamps. I plan to eventually replace the larger radiator hoses with silicone as well but those hoses are new, so it's not a high priority. I do realize without using pre-formed hoses the routing would have to be planned well and tied away from any moving parts and all the hardware such as the bleeder will have to go back inline.

Third, are there any other considerations in using silicone hose?

I'm hoping silicone will provide a bit more peace of mind knowing that it's more durable. Thanks in advance.

[Wild Willy]

GM used to use these hoses on the police cars- the 9C1 Caprices- they were billed as a "lifetime" hose in that they wouldn't oxidize or break down. They also used a special stainless steel clamp that was smooth on the inside so as to not chew up the hose. It used to be one of the ways to identify a "real" police package car instead of a regular civilian Caprice.

I went from 140 k miles to 250 k miles on my '95 Caprice that I bought used in '99. Ran it until I sold it in 2006 to by my Camaro, also a police service vehicle. Never had any problems, but I realize that isn't a huge data set.

[BrdWAtti2d]

Thanks for the reply. Yea I read an article on another site where they mentioned using them on police cruisers, good to hear you got a lot of mileage out of them, chasing leaks is really getting old. I did see the solid stainless clamps you spoke of on one of the performance sites, which sell the hose. I'm just not sure if these are necessary or if a standard clamp would do the trick. Thanks again.