hello!

i bought an 04 x-type 3.0 with 80k on the clock a few weeks ago. the car is in great shape, but the brakes are really soft. they seemingly grab, but go right to the floor in the process. ive searched around a little online, and this seems to be sort of common, but there seems to be no definitive cause of it outlined anywhere. ive also seen all kinds of kooky stories justifying this as normal as well. i have a bit of a hard time buying that however.

if i were to guess it would be the master cylinder in the early stages of failure.(again assuming, that if it were booster failure, it would create more of a hard/wooden feel....and brakes were recently bled, pads and rotors are new all the way around, and calipers and lines all seems to be perfectly intact and functioning normally).

anybody have any direct experience with this issue? id rather not go throwing arrows at minnows here if i dont have to here

thanks in advance!

 

Braided brake lines and a complete change of brake fluid will help.

I used Goodridge Phantom lines and Castrol React Performance DOT 4

 

Darin, first off, welcome to the Forums. Lots of good information here and tons of great people. But, we do ask a small favor from you. Please stop by the New Member Section and tell us a little bit about yourself and your car. We strive to be a better car group and as part of this, we like to make it more of a family environment. This will also give you a chance to meet those that make this place what it is.

As for your problem, I would first start with a fluid change out and bleeding the brakes. You will most likely find that your fluid is a dark green color (should be almost water clear). You can bleed the brakes yourself by using a 5 foot piece of 1/4" tygon tubing, some masking tape, and a glass jar (put one end of the tubing on the bleeder port, tape the center of the tubing to the top of the wheel well, and place the open end of the tubing into the glass jar). From there, you can crack open the bleed port, pump the brakes a few times, fill the reservoir with new fluid, pump some more, refill, repeating till you see no air resting at the top of the tygon tubing and the fluid coming out is clear/very light shade of green. Then you can close the bleeder valve and then disconnect the tubing. You will want to repeat this on all 4 wheels. The order that you want to do them is left rear, right rear, left front and then right front.

Lets see what you have at that point. What you are describing sounds like there is some air in the brake system. New fluid is always a good thing. I would say to get yourself a quart of Super DOT 3 and 4 full synthetic fluid.

If you need more assistance, let us know.

 

hello!

ill pop over there and introduce myself asap!

in the meantime, i had the brakes bled earlier this week and it seemed to do virtually nothing. however, the fluid is hardly "water clear". did they possibly use the wrong type of fluid?

 

Bleeding could have left you with a little bit of new fluid and most of the old fluid.

Fluid should be changed completely every two years or so

If the charge is not too much you could change the fluid and then decide if you want to upgrade the brake lines

 

darin, if they only bleed the brakes enough to get rid of the air, then yes it could possibly still be other than water clear. If it was cloudy, then you need to get it out of there ASAP!!!!!! That is telling me that either the wrong fluid was used or there is a high level of water contamination in there. WIthout seeing what color/look the fluid has, it is hard to say what the problem is.

 

the fluid is a light, pale semi translucent greenish color. it looks exactly like the stuff in my ford, and in my wifes toyota

 

If it is a light greenish color, then that is fine. You don't want something that looks like colored milk. That would be bad.

 

im going to have the entire system flushed by the local specality shop on monday and see what happens

ill let you all know!

thanks!

 

Hi,

Any update on how you got on with your brakes?

Gary

 

Darin:
Spongy brakes are a sign of air in the system. Other things can cause spongyness but if your system has been worked on there is a good chance there has been air introduced into the system. As for the type of fluid you use, Dot 3 and Dot 4 are used for NORMAL driving situations, Dot 5 is usually for high speed hard stopping like police,emergency vehicles. Synthetic is in a class by itself (race cars). The difference is the boiling point and the susceptibility of moisture absorption.I was told never to mix synthetic with Dot 3.4.5 they are not compatible.Color: should be translucent, Brown or dark color is contaminates like rust from water and deterioration of the seals. If you see dark fluid at the wheels but it is clear in the reservoir it is because of heat, moisture,debre from the wheel cylinders and TIME.
If it was mine I would open each bleeder one at a time in the sequence that Thermo suggested and GRAVITY bleed them until there is no bubbles. Keep the reservoir full at all times.I have done this on My 03 X and has well as many others with very good results.

 

so it turns out the issue was a non-functioning rear caliper, likely caused by the PO's idiot "mechanic" not knowing what the f@%* he was doing and trying to compress using something along the lines of a screwdriver

i took it to joe ritz at sports and collector car center in tempe, az and he figured it out basically immediately (as well as solving a minor electrical bug), and the car is working awesome right now.

thanks for the suggestions all.....im sure im be back!