Jiggerypokery

A family member recently had his car serviced at the SEAT garage, this included changing the brake fluid. After the service the brakes felt very spongy, with a lot of travel before biting. I took the car back to the garage myself, and got fobbed off by the service manager, who said "they all do that sir", "I know it's an unusual sensation, but it's normal".

A mechanic / technician then took the car out for a spin and drove the car into the garage on return and bled the brakes (without being asked to, which made me think that he knew there was something wrong). After this, the biting point was higher, despite them telling me that they didn;t manage to get any air out, but: when applying a constant force to the brake pedal (when stationary) the pedal will slowly make its way to the floor. This also happened on another SEAT which they let me try for comparison.

Is this really normal for this car?
Thanks for any input.

mimno-uk

Hmmmm...... I've had similar issues with my Toledo TDi.... It may be something with the SEAT brakes. I've had the car in several times and I've had the brake fluid changed twice. They cannot get the brakes back to the way they were about 20K miles ago! When I challenged them they fobbed me off with all sorts of technical babble - like "the car has hard pads to allow for fast-road use"?!!

Let me know if you have any joy.... If I do keep the car (might ditch it in favour of a scooby!) I'm gonna get some proper discs and pads!

Cheers,

Michael McCormick.

Jiggerypokery

I've never been over enthused with the Leon's brakes. I once pumped the brakes as an experiment, and I could pump them up (very little pedal travel, and the pedal went hard). Doing this at 60mph resulted in me standing on the brakes and nothing happening! To me, this would indicate that there is air in the system. To a SEAT sevice manager, this is "not a normal braking reaction".
Even the owner of the car knew there was something wrong, and he's not exactly a car-techie enthusiast.

Jiggerypokery

Oh, and I was told to "choose any car" from any manufacturer as a comparison, as the service manager was convinced that all cars behaved in this way, so I chose a Mazda. Funnily enough, the brakes behaved like every other non-SEAT car I've driven: the pedal coudn't be pumped hard, and it didn't go all the way to the floor... his explanation: "Every car's braking system is different, sir..."

mimno-uk

It sounds like the same attitude as I got from my local SEAT dealership. Before the last fluid change I shot straight over a junction I was trying to stop at. Just like you've described the brakes can be "pumped up". I've started working the brakes at low speeds before going onto a main road..... It does sound like air in a pipe. If the car is under warranty, complain to SEAT direct and if that fails contact AUTO EXPRESS. If it's not, take the car to a good local "back-street" garage and/or brake specialist. It might just be that the local SEAT guys are incompetent....