Scooby.Newbie

Went out to the car park last night, got in the car sat there for a couple of mins waiting for it warm a little, pulled forward (reversed in to space in the morning) straight on, first, second, third, come to a cross roads in the middle of the industrial estate, last minute, hard on the brakes and nothing !

Was half way across the junction before I even got on the hand brake or gears, sailing straight through and about 40ft across the other side, luckly was working late and there was no one else about. Pulled forward again in first, hard on the brakes same thing, really soft and spongy and when I pressed hard it seemed to keep on giving like air (fluid obvioulsy) was leaking out and slowly let the pedal down.

Pumped it a few time and it seemed to firm up (but may have just been the way it felt) drove up and down a parking bay a few times and they seemed to come back to life, but still not on full and a grinding type noise coming from the back wheels (sounded like it), took it back to work stuck it in a parking bay and called the misses, wern't driving it home through town.

No warning lights on the dash, and no fluid were it was parked, that I could see,but pitch black out there by then.

Is going to be interesting when I get hold of the garage where I bought it from, seeing as we have had argumentsabout why they can't register it with the IMG for the warrenty !

Will let you know.

Any tips what I should be looking at to give me a clue wtf happened? Obviously going to check the brake fluid resivoir and under for leaks and the like. Car is a '04 STi by the way, and trust me, last night Silver was the fastest colour

corradoboy

Could be the master cylinder. Had mine go twice in my Corrado after using some $h!te silicon based brake fluid, with similar experiences to yours.

Scooby.Newbie

Yeah that was kind of what I was thinking, it only had its twelve month service about 7 weeks ago, at a main Subaru dealer.

Don't know if this is something that they would have even looked at let alone checked, just scared the crap out of me, and to think the day before was coming back from a day out in a bit of a rush, could have been interesting.

stilover

Funny that this post has come up. This morning on the way to work, my brakes felt dead, wooden like. Nearly crashed into my electronic gates, then had to brake very early for junctions. They needed a heavy foot to make them work. I'll see what there like tonight, but a trip to the dealer seems on the cards.

Mines a MY05 STi

MickeyWRX

your brakes would have been stone cold and then you asked them to perform an emergency stop and they wouldnt be very effective when cold

DonnieDarko

despite this nugget of genius :P , i am pretty sure brakes are meant to work, even when its cold.

there will be slight variations in force needed to get major stopping power, but unless your pads/disc have ice on them (very unlikely) normal use should not be affected much

stilover

Well, the problem went away just a fast as it appeared. Left work for home tonight and everything was back to normal. Must has just been air in the brake line or something.
I agree with Donnie, brakes work cold or hot, that's main stream production cars for you!! Plus I never emergency stopped, considering the gates are ten yards from the car.
Just one of those thing I suppose.

cong

best to bleed brakes and replace brakefluid ! its your life

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

If this where true race teams wouldn't put so much effort into keeping the brakes Cool !

If you think about it they should have worked better than normal!

Ennoch

Different thing, race teams try to stop the brakes overheating but most race pads do need some heat in them to get the best braking. Some more so than others. Ie DS2000/2500 pads are reasonable from cold, on the other hand DS3000 are awful but once warmed up far outstrip the others in breaking ability.

Scooby.Newbie

Hope you get your problem sorted Stilover, with mine there was nothing at all, foot to the floor and not even a sign of slowing down.

Loaded it onto a flatbed truck last night and watched as the nasty man drove it away, and am now driving about in a spare car I have at the moment, a limited edition Bertone Astra convertable, so hair cut anyone?

DocJock

If you honestly believe that, then I hope I am never sharing the same bit of road as you anytime soon. :O

All friction compounds have a range of operating temperatures where they work best.
Too cold is just as bad as too hot.