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98 Grand V-ger with intermittant soft brake pedal
lpaulcarter
Member Posts: 2
From receipts that came with the vehicle: the previous owner complained of a soft brake pedal in October '07, so the brakes were checked and bled. In November '07 there's a receipt for a new master cylinder.
I bought the van in August '08 and the brakes have been fine until recently. Now, every once in a while, in no apparent pattern and for no reason I can discern, the pedal goes almost to the floor before I get any action. Pumping once brings the pedal back to normal.
I've had it checked at a brake shop and there are no leaks anywhere or any problems they can identify - in fact, they were unable to duplicate the problem after two days of testing.
Before I commit to further work (read: parts replacement) at a shop, I though I'd see if there's anyone out there who's had similar problems and found the answer. Master brake cylinders should last for for years (the van only has 110,000 km on it) so I think there might be something else going on...
Paul
I bought the van in August '08 and the brakes have been fine until recently. Now, every once in a while, in no apparent pattern and for no reason I can discern, the pedal goes almost to the floor before I get any action. Pumping once brings the pedal back to normal.
I've had it checked at a brake shop and there are no leaks anywhere or any problems they can identify - in fact, they were unable to duplicate the problem after two days of testing.
Before I commit to further work (read: parts replacement) at a shop, I though I'd see if there's anyone out there who's had similar problems and found the answer. Master brake cylinders should last for for years (the van only has 110,000 km on it) so I think there might be something else going on...
Paul
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
rob
Tel :confuse:
Of course the master cylinder itself and not the booster may be at fault especially in a high humidity environment like Ol' Blighty that may cause internal corrosion and premature seal failure. Have you had the brake fluid changed at all uptill now?
The radiator is straightforward even with air-con, but please be careful with the transmission oil cooler within the left hand tank of the radiator. Make sure you get a quality replacement and that the plumbing is done right, otherwise you will need a new transmission soon after the radiator.
Good Luck mate.
Two alternatives to taking the vehicle in, and I do not recommend either of them if one has not seen them done beforehand, is to use a pressure bleeder or cycle the ABS pump directly by hooking up wires depending on the type of vehicle.
anti-freeze and fan cooling. This dealer told me that the extra coolers were usually only installed on the vans manufactured and sold with towing packages, unless the buyer specified that he wanted one and had it put in at time of purchase. He also told me that the ones with the extra cooler had much lees problems and failures than the ones without them. Having done this on my 97 when I personally replaced the tranny, I am a believer. Happy motoring!
I did bleed them all(cars) 4 times, and have also Vacumn Bled them, but none of that has fixed the problem. As far as your reccomendation, I would prefer option # 2 of jumping out the ABS system with jumper wires to engage the system, but cannot seem to find a wiring diagram for any of these systems that will tell me where and which wires to jump out. My mechanic buddy says he does not like or approve of the pressure bleeders. Why I don't know.
If you are that much into servicing your own vehicles, and I hope so, then an investment in factory service manuals will pay you several times over.
As far as the second one goes, I actually purchased a "factory" manual for the Daewoo, and it is useless!! Any chiltons I ever owned for any vehicle I ever owned,for every , which I stopped buying years ago, in favor of Haynes were better than that thing is ! I will say, the Honda Factory service book for a different year honda then the one I own, that I got my hands on was fantasic!
You are right that the quality of service information varies greatly. Daewoo is in the pits, but several other marques are very good. The Germans are very stingy too I think. I for one do try to take this into account when choosing my vehicles.
What you do is what I admire.
Now I must appologize to everyone here and the moderators for going slightly off topic here, about another make, but as long as it was mentioned here, I will answer that or comment about it here as well.
The only other thing I will say, is about the Daewoo Leganza. While it certainly does have it's fair share of quirks and problems from all I have read about, I bought a 2001 brand new and withing 6 months, GM had shut down all the US dealers. Two things made me buy that car. The Dealer was 5 blocks from my home, and it seemed like a pretty good value for the money at the time and living on a fixed income, it was a no brainer decision. My 01 got hit and was deemed a total if all the body parts were available, so I found a 99 with a blown engine, and did an engine swap from my 01 into the 99. Also swapped the struts, and saved every moving, and high wear or breakage type part off the 01 as spares for the 99. It does appear to me, that the 99 was in fact of higher quality and came loaded with a lot of frills as standard over the 01, even though most items basically looked alike and were inter-changeable. BUT you sure could see the quality of the parts had gone down over the years even tho they looked almost identical.
However, you do realise that YOU are a bad customer as fas the car companies are concerned. I mean this in a good sense, just like the person who pays his/her credit cards in full each month is anathema to the credit card company.
What the car companies need is somebody who not only buys the car, but also pays for an extended maintenance contract for meaningless "inspections", pays a monthly subscription for CrapStar safety surveillance, and then trades in the vehicle for them to resell after two or three years.
What the hell is WRONG with you?
I wish you every success with your maintenance travails!
Back to the topic, I once had a 1999 Dodge Grand Caravan and oh the stories I could tell about its engineering and maintenance.
I have very much enjoyed our exchanges, thank you very much. :shades:
If you just think about things for a bit, we all have worked for a salary, which actually supports our employers as well as our families. Makes sense, when it works as it should. But, enter the GREED factor. It becomes more about big business and the "fat cats" who run it, wanting more and more and more, at the worker's and consumer's expense. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and those cosumers less in return as the qulity and life span of the products go down hill, and employees do not even get wage increases that keep in line with inflation or the raise in their employer's profits. One one winner in that situation!
The darn thing is made of polyphenolic resin and has a tendency to crack with the inevitable heat recycling from the too-small brakes to begin with. I am sure it saved the bean counters few cents per peice over a proper metal piston.
The 1996 vans kept the old style under-specified calipers, plastic pistons and all, and I think that those calipers are still in service on the newer designs from ChryCo.
There is no substitute for doing whatever work one can do on one's vehicles ever. It may not be possible to do all the work, but even then understanding what is going on can be quite valuable.