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if it is intermittent, that's what I think you have. go around the block a few times during a rainstorm before picking up your co-workers for the lunch run, and they won't know.
the good news is, your brakes are still working well... they are just complaining about too much humidity.
They look at this the same way as a person bringing their own bacon and eggs into a restaurant and handing them to the cook..." Here, cook my breakfast"
However if they list labor rates separately from their parts price lists, one would imagine, in theory at least, that the two do not have to go together.
Anyway, if it is a simple job, and no special skill is involved, I can just see if anyone will do the job for me (out of the numerous service stations around me).
I agree though - this may end up being more trouble than it is worth.
It's not worth it in my opinion.
Sometimes this noise has to do with the composition of the brake pad material, sometimes due to moisture build up overnight, sometimes just how the pad sits in the caliper.
It's a tough nut to crack. Probably experimenting with different types of pads is the only permanent thing you can do.
And that's right, probably you don't have ABS now.
If you still can't get a pedal, the master cylinder is probably damaged from pistons overstroking into the pitted and corroded areas in the ends of the bores.
You will not find this quick cure in your owner's manual. I thought it was awfully coincidental that the ABS light had come on about the same time I noticed the dark rear window brake light as she was driving away down the street, so I finally got around to replacing the bulbs today to test my theory, and no more ABS light!!!
I hope grannyonthego is as lucky!! it's worth checking out!!
around the twin cities, we all got a good education via the public prints on how brake lights interact with auto computers when a modified drunk van went wild at a winter parade a few years ago, and ran over a dozen folks on a curb. several died, including a baby in a stroller. tranny interlock and ABS sensor both came off the cold side of the high-brake lamps. the cop driving the van never worked again and was invalidated onto retirement, hope he's adjusted by now. the problem was the hinky flash-em-all wiring that was added with the police decals after the city bought the van.
Our other vehicle is a '98 Ford Windstar. The ABS light has been on for several months. However, my high brake light works, with all bulbs lit, so I won't be as lucky with that. With my Ciera, the ABS light was on continuously, but in the windstar, it is only intermittantly, and usually goes off on highway trips of more than 10-15 miles.
When bleeding, if you are using an assistant, I always advise people not to romp on the brake pedal like you were pumping up a liferaft, but rather use short rapid strokes of the foot.
I found a couple bleeder screws up on the abs block by the master. Using suction on the mity-vac and my helping foot on the pedal. After i cracked them, followed the regular routine and presto, fixed.
Not sure it yours has ABS, just my experience.
Good luck
The dealer has told me that because asbestos is no longer used in the brakes, the metal is rubbing on metal and that I should not expect squeak free brakes. Is this true or is there some recourse for me? The brake squeak is very shrill, extremely annoying and is driving me up the wall. Does anyone have any advice or had this same experience and how was it handled?
Best solution I could offer is to experiment with different (softer) types of brake pads and/or aftermarket rotors.
That squeak is often the result of a rather complex set of circumstances, the elimination of only one of which doesn't solve the problem entirely. So you don't have to do one thing right, you sometimes need to do three things right all at once.
Do you think it is more than just pads and rotors?
Few months ago, I had been smelling something burning once-in-a-while when driving. Then I figured out it was the left front brake grabbing. Since brakes needed some attention anyway, I replaced the rotors, pads and the left caliper. Now if I tighten the left caliper bolt fully, left brake grabs again and I cannot rotate the left wheel by hand. If I leave the caliper bolt slightly loose, no problem at all and the brake works perfect except the caliper is loose (caliper does not come out but it rotates up and down a little around the caliper pin. Do I have a BRAND NEW warped rotor? (No problem at all with the other brake/rotor.) Or is something else wrong?
All responses will be appreciated.
That could be complex enough...sure, it could be caliper alignment, amount of brake dust accumulated, even harmonic dynamics of some type.
My approach was always...softer pads, clean smooth rotors, and brake pad "cushioning" material. That usually worked, at least for a while.
One time on an MG I had I bought high quality aftermarket rotors, softer pads and stainless woven flex lines and boy was I happy I did that. I had to swap the pads out more often but I had so much smoother quieter braking.
But all cars are different, so you have to approach this methodically I think. First this, then that, then that, always working from the simple to the complex.
I have seen several posts by busy professional mechanics on ABS issues that indicates a munged-up wheel sensor is a pretty common failure... particularly right front or right rear, from a curb hit, for instance.
Obviously, swschrad's explanation is accurate, about the diode in the high brake light. I feel very lucky that's all it was in my case. If I had replaced the first bulb when it went out a year ago, I would have never even had the ABS light, and wouldn't have learned the connection between the two. Live and learn!
Off brand cheap replacement bulbs made in SE Asia and Mexico have caused problems, melting sockets/contacts causing system faults.
At the minimum make sure you purchase Premium LL [long life] grade bulbs.
Does your manual say this is so, that the ABS light will light if a bulb is bad. If it doesn't say that, I'm not buying it (yet). It was just a coincidence then. But if it says that, then I'm in.
you have to have something to isolate the input from dead ground in the latter case... a diode or series resistor will work nicely. you now have a clamped input that is never going to go negative, and is going to be limited from the top voltage of the battery and have some spike isolation from other noise sources on the +12 buss by the voltage drop of the brake bulbs. as a bonus, putting a diode in series with the high brake light bulbs drops the voltage across the bulb by about a volt as well... extending the bulb life considerably, as this is about an 8 percent voltage reduction. using 130 or 140 volt bulbs in traffic signals does the same thing, almost doubling bulb life over 120v bulbs.
you do this in $100,000-200,000 transmitting tubes in TV and international shortwave transmitters that have a 6 to 10 month lead time order-to-deliver, and you can get 10 years on a tube set without replacements. the PDF referenced below from the former RCA power tube operations is a long download, but convincing... if you don't mind deep discussions of adjusting milliohms of resistance at dozens or hundreds of filament amps. also note this is a monograph about 10 years old now, and tube costs have gone up tremendously from the numbers used in the piece.
http://www.burle.com/cgi-bin/byteserver.pl/pdf/voa.pdf
so you have a nickel part that takes maybe ten cents to insert in the wiring harness that does a whole lot of things for you in one step.
15 cents for multiple purposes trumps maybe 40 cents worth of isolating and clamping on the inputs of each of several computers (main, ABS, possibly also a stability control box.)
that's why we got what we have here.
I don't have access to my OM right now, I'm alone at work and need to stay close for several hours yet.
There are 2 brake pedal switches [for fail safe].
The ABS computer is primed by [one or both of] the brake switch closures to begin looking for deceleration. If deceleration [differential slowing] occurs without the brake signal it illuminates the ABS warning. Both switches are tested independently!
The point is you must study the FSM and understand the functioning of the systems
Changed rear disc pads before they wore out. They had 84,000 miles on them. I installed the new pads that I got from Napa. They were some kind of ceramic type. Took the shims off from behind the old pads and reinstalled them on the new ones. Not a squeak to be heard!
I's so proud of myself for doing this operation.
that is surely possible. still don't know what year and make vehicle this is... if it's a 1996 or later, there is almost certainly a code or two stuck in the computer that can be pulled. it will identify what the general function is that is failing, and then appropriate tests for what affecting that function is hosed up.
there might be a flashing-bulb code if the car is late 80s to mid-90s