Last night, when I was driving home, I turned on my car, and the “service brakes” light came on. The only thing different about the brakes was that they were a little “spongy.” All night, there hadn’t been any problems with them, and they still work, I just have to press all the way down.
Does anyone know what could be the problem, and how much to fix it?
I drive an 86 Chevy Caprice, if that helps out any.
Get your brakes checked out immediately. You might have contaminants in the lines, or even air. Just when you may need your brakes the most, you will find you will not stop in time.
Potential brake failure has life and death consequences. Get them checked immediately.
Duckster speaks the truth. Spongy Brakes (talk about a band name) smell of broken facial bones. You might even have the garage tow it there.
Causes and estimates in each case they state “Urgency: High”.
If pumping the brake pedal makes the brakes bite harder, then you have air in your brake lines.
Since its an older car and the problem just popped up I’ll guess that you have a hole in a brake line, it will only get worse.
If it’s a leak in the brakes (line, calipher, etc.), the level in the brake reservoir will be noticeably low. If you are not losing fluid it is probably a master cylinder problem. Either way fix it now.
Well, pumping the brakes did make them less spongy. I’ll have to have these looked at before I go back to school.
I guess this means I’m stuck at home for a while.
As someone already suggested, you might want to have this towed to the shop.
If your brake light is on, there’s a pressure imbalance between the two hydraulic circuits. In other words, you aren’t getting much (or any) brake fluid pumped to two of your four wheels. It’s a lot harder to stop a car with only two brakes.
If you do drive this, drive slow and keep out of traffic.
But check your brake fluid first. Thats one easy thing you can do & put some more in if you need. But then you have to find out why its low too. From the age of it, its probably the master cylinder but have someone look at it.
Well, it seems that the rear brake line had rusted through, and was leaking fluid. He said that I probably had scraped it that night, and it finally broke.
It’s fixed now, and the brakes work fine. Only cost $107 dollars.
I can do that repair in… FIVE minutes with FIVE dollars worth of parts. Any takers?
(My mom always said I should be a mechanic…)
I finally got one…
TBone–you got my next brake repair.
FIVE MINUTES?? You can change a rusted out brake line, refill, flush and bleed the system and rebalance the brake warning light switch in 5 minutes? Or are we talking about a weld overlay repair here?
I call bullshit.
Bundy-flex replacement brake lines come pre-made in two lengths. They are either too short or too long. So a mechanic must remove the old line take a new (too long) line and using a tubing bender (so the tubing does not kink) exactly replicate the bends of the old pipe. Then the excess must be cut off and depending on the design of the brake system a double flare or bubble flare put on the cut end of the line. Then install the new line, getting the brake line back into all of its original hold down locations. Fill the master and bleed the brakes. Bleeding the brakes but itself can take 5-10 minutes in the shop with a power bleeder. Lying on your back in a driveway at least twice that. Oh yeah, don’t throw that brake fluid in the drain it is hazardous waste.
So to do this job properly you will need about $100-150 in tools (bender and flare tool), a couple of bottles of brake fluid, and a lot more than 5 minutes of your time.
I sell auto parts, may I use this line?
And don’t forget the time spent freeing the nasty, rusted-out bleeder screws; the trip to NAPA for replacement bleeder screws; the trip to NAPA to buy a flare wrench because the old fittings won’t budge, even though you’ve tried open-end wrenches, vise grips and even your teeth; the trip to the hardware to buy hacksaw blades and three different types of penetrating oil (none of which will help); the trip to NAPA to find someone with a clue to flare the brake line for you (because it keeps pushing out of your cheap flaring tool); the time to bandage various minor wounds and the trip to NAPA to buy a new master cylinder because you pushed the pedal too far and destroyed the last one while bleeding the brakes.
At least that’s how my first brake repair went. Of course, this was on an MG.
I think $107 is a fair price to pay to avoid that kind of unpleasantness–unless you really like to work on cars.
Of course, I made it up when I used to sell auto parts.
Also, as I am sure you are aware, you must remind the customer that no matter what they may think. They won’t be able to have the brake fluid squirt out of the end on the too short bundyflex, across the missing 2" and into the brake caliper with any degree of sucess.
P. Nym, I am rolling on the floor laughing, because that is exactly how every one of my brake repairs has gone (except that I have a little better luck with the flaring tool). Spot on.