AC hose burned through?

[dxve]

Just bought a used 2002 TB and the AC compressor wouldn't run or cool at all. took it to a real garage (i.e. not the dealer) to check it out and I couldn't believe what they found. At just over 60,000 miles, the AC hose has been burned through by the manifold cover on the passenger side and all of the freon has escaped. the system won't hold pressure until this hose is replaced. the hose is a single part with rubber sections at either end, and a steel section where it passes over the engine. By some quirk of bad design, GM has the steel section switch to rubber before being clear of the engine (and all of its hot bits) and the rubber has a hole burned through it. Now I'm looking at $500 to replace the hose! and because of the design flaw, no expectation that it won't happen again.

The dealer advises that there are no TSB's for the problem.

Anyone else have any similar problems? As this is clearly a design flaw, and I'm out of warranty, any suggestions for how to get GM to repair their mistake?

[dxve]

Guess I'm the only one with this problem. In case anyone encounters it later, here's how we solved it:

Our garage had a custom line made up which mirrored the original GM AC line but moved the transition to rubber a few inches further along. Combined with a slight bend to the passenger side bracket where it mounts on the engine, it seems to have done the trick. The best part, the custom line to correct the GM design flaw was about half the price of the part from GM!