Intermittent brake sponginess - Maintenance and Repair Forum

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Intermittent brake sponginess
Monday, December 09, 2013 10:38 AM
Ok so a while back I was having some work done on my 04 Cavy and the mechanic told me I had some brake fluid in the rear drum and I needed to replace my wheel cylinders. I hadn't noticed any problems, so I took his advice into consideration and went on my way.

A little while later I started noticing a loud squealing from my rear brakes that I attributed to the fluid. I also developed this weird intermittent brake issue where my brake pedal would go all the way to the floor, usually if I was riding the brake like in rush hour traffic or if I slowly stepped on the pedal. If I quickly and deliberately stepped on the pedal, everything was fine. I assumed at this point the wheel cylinder issue was an immediate concern and replaced them myself.

I then took it back to the mechanic to get the brakes flushed assuming this would fix all the problems. It didn't. I am still having the same issue. One thing to note, when the pedal goes to the floor, I do not have to apply extra force as if I had no brake pressure or no power brakes, the pedal just goes all the way down and the car stops fine. It does however scare the bejeezus out of my every time because it feels like there are suddenly no brakes!

Anyone have any idea where I should start looking to fix this issue?

Re: Intermittent brake sponginess
Monday, December 09, 2013 11:22 AM
Does the car have ABS? Could be the abs module. They can be rebuilt, or swapped out. I had 2 weeks at my shop of nothing but replacing brake lines and abs units, that was a pain. If it doesn't have abs maybe you have a line that is collapsing in on itself and not allowing it to bleed properly. You could always try bleeding them yourself.






On the inside my car looks like a fighter jet.
Re: Intermittent brake sponginess
Monday, December 09, 2013 12:15 PM
intermittent faulty master cylinder
Re: Intermittent brake sponginess
Monday, December 09, 2013 1:29 PM
I'd check for leaks in the lines/calipers and make sure the calipers are good. Then grab a new master cylinder if everything checks out.



"In Oldskool we trust"
Re: Intermittent brake sponginess
Monday, December 09, 2013 2:56 PM
My girls 01 z24 would do that from time to time, pulled out the abs relay for now and hasnt done it since. Try that since its easy to do quick, if pedal stays off the floor like it should than get a new abs unit


FuzzMASTA9
Re: Intermittent brake sponginess
Tuesday, December 10, 2013 12:48 PM
It does have ABS, in fact the ABS and Service lights are always on since my wife almost got ran off the road in the car a few years back. She had to jerk the wheel hard and the lights came on and now regularly pop on an off. I read somewhere there was a recall or a TSB on this issue and that it didn't really cause any problems but made the light stay on. So it could be an ABS issue and I never noticed because I am so used to seeing the light.
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