Brake issues.

[HijackTheLeft]

xPosted from the tech forum. I haven't been here in a while, and i just noticed the "ADVANCED" in the forum description. I wasn't sure if this was advanced or not, and it definitely seems less advanced than some of the issues described here. So here goes...

I’ve had a couple brake issues lately, and I’m not sure if they’re connected or not. First, a few weeks ago, my brake pedal felt a little loose, like I was having to push down farther than normal to get the brakes to engage. It was barely noticeable, and after I checked my brake fluid, and got back in the car, it was fine, so I attributed it to my imagination. It didn’t do it again for a while, but on my way home from work last week, I had to press my brake pedal all the way to the floorboard before the brakes would work. It was kind of gradual, but it got to that point pretty quickly after leaving work. The next morning it was fine. It’s been fine since.Secondly, my Brake light on my dash has been coming on for no reason. I’ve finally figured it out when it will do it. After it sits for a while, for the first couple minutes after starting my car, if I take a right turn, the light will come on, and then if I take a left turn, it will go out. The longer the car sits, the longer it will take to stop doing that. And this is a gradual thing to. When I first start the car, it’s pretty sensitive and any change in lateral momentum will affect the light. As I drive it a while, it gets less and less sensitive until finally, everything seems fine.I just had my car inspected last month, and specifically asked the mechanic to check the brakes because they had been squealing. It was barely audible, but I figured it was worth checking. He said the brakes were in great condition. Does anybody have any thoughts on this issue?

[Chris28]

For the brake light on your dash, check the switch next to your e-brake, you can see it when you take off the brake boot but you might have to take the center console out to access it. Right now mine stays on all the time, its just a matter of fiddling with the switch to get it to come on only when you pull the brake. As for brake problem, maybe it could be a leak in the lines somewhere? Maybe when you first start the car the fluid is too viscous to leak, but after heating up it leaks? I'd check your lines for leaks, but that sounds really odd.

[HijackTheLeft]

ill check the switch on the ebrake.

and i thought maybe a leak too, but i havent had to put any fluid in it at all. there's plenty, and it's not going down. and ive been on much longer trips than my ride home from work and it was fine. it's really only done it like 3 times. the first one was barely noticeable, the second time was a little worse, but not terrible, and then last time, i was scared my brakes were going to completely fail. i want to fix this, but i dont even know where to look to find the problem. it seems completely random.

and the weirdest part is that the brake problem and the brake light problem both started happening at about the same time, but i can't figure out how they might be related.

[JackIrish]

That's crazy, good work with all those details. what you may want to do, is bring your car somewhere that there's nothing to hit or anything and try to see if you can make what ever is happening happen. try somehow to figure out when the brakes will go to the floor. maybe when the light comes on press the brakes and see if they go all the way down? and what like is coming on? the e-brake light or the 'you have no more brakes left' light?

[HijackTheLeft]

it's just the ebrake light, and it's completely affected by lateral force. i've tried to see if i could find some sort of relation between the light and the brakes, but I can't do it. does the brake light have anything to do with anything other than the ebrake? i thought maybe the brake light acts like the oil light, and comes on when you're fluid is low, but i can't find anything to back that up.

and the pedal thing isn't really caused by anything I do. when I get in my car and start driving, if it's going to do it, I can tell the first time I hit the brakes. it's kinda scary.

I also wanted to note, part of my apartment building's parking lot is on a hill, with the cars parking opposite of the slope. like... the left side of the car is higher than the right side. it doesn't seem like that would be good for the car, and i try to avoid parking in that area whenever possible. but it's unavoidable sometimes. Is it possible that may have anything to do with the issue? are there any other bad side effects this may have??

And thanks for the compliment. lol i do tech support for a computer company, and im used to writing up support tickets. i didn't realize how much this was like a support ticket until after you commented on the details. =)

[cmfireman]

Have you tried bleeding the brakes?

As for the BRAKE light on the dash, it is there for both the e-brake and the fluid level. My car was leaking a very small amount of fluid a while back, and any time the BRAKE light was on, my master cylinder would be below the MAX level with fluid.

I would suggest bleeding them to see if there is any air trapped in the lines that would be causing your problems. The air will rise above the fluid while the car is sitting, causing you brakes to be spongy the first few times you use them. After the fluid has been distributed into the calipers, the problem will ease off.

You may even want to consider putting all-new fluid in the car while your at it. It's probably got the stuff it came from the factory with.

To do this, bleed the brakes as normal and have someone keeping an eye on the reservoir to make sure it doesn't get low enough to suck in any air. When the fluid coming out of the bleeder screws is the color of new fluid, you're finished.

Start from the pass. rear wheel, move to drivers rear, then move to pass. front, last to drivers front.

Modified by cmfireman at 5:14 PM 10/1/2007
Modified by cmfireman at 5:15 PM 10/1/2007

[HijackTheLeft]

it hasn't been done in the last 100,000 miles, so it's probably not a bad idea to do anyway. ill give that a shot.