Brakes too soft.. help

J

joeyb203

Member
This might be a novice question, but here it goes. I recently changed the brake pads on my 09 FX50S and they became very soft. I bled them so unless there is an unusual technique to doing so, I don't believe its that. It feels like I have to push the pedal pretty far back to get the normal stopping power. The brakes used to be really hard and I liked that. Does it have to do with the pads? I forget what brand but they weren't OEM, sadly. Any ideas?
 
Pads dont effect pedal feel. Did you push the pistons out when changing the pads? Sometimes that will increase pedal travel. Did you bed the pads? Usually the hard stops will get everything back to normal.
 
after 1000-2000 miles pads usually work better and the pedal feel comes back. Ive been running 2 sets of hawks the last two times and during the first 1000-3000miles pedal felt mushy and soft. I did however bed in the pads which stopped unnecessary squeaks. Different pads work differently, cheaper pads usually have a soft feel to it especially when added some anti brake squeak glue behind the pads
 
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I know there isn't any air in the tubes because they have been bled a few times to make sure there isn't any air. It's weird, its like if the brake pedal is soft and mushy, you can pump the pedal and it will get harder. Im going to take it out for a couple hard stops and let y'all know.
 
Did you ever run the master cylinder low? But it sounds like your symptoms are from pushing the pistons back. I've done the same thing a couple of times. Basically, when I pushed the pistons back to install the new pad, it pushed fluid back through the system into the master cylinder reservoir. Then when you step on the brakes, the system is having to move much more fluid to get the pistons/pads back. Usually this will resolve itself since after enough stops, the pistons are back to normal. Its the same reason that some cars get mushy brakes with BBKs, the new larger caliper needs a lot more fluid than the master cylinder is designed for.

This may be obvious, but you're not low on brake fluid are you? That can also cause similar symptoms. If that's not it and you're 100% sure your brakes are bled properly, just try some hard stops to bed the pads and this should solve the problem. It always did for me. The fact that you have to pump the pedal and it gets firm is exactly what I experienced.

Why did you have to bleed the brakes for a pad change though? Or did you replace brake fluid at the same time?
 
How did you bleed the breaks, what order, did you have enough fluid in the reservoir during the bleeding process, did you kink any of the lines etc...? It really just sounds like air in the system



TapaTalkin'
 
just rechecked this thread, i didnt know you had a fx50s bbk. It sounds like something went wrong during the brake job.
 
@Shadow, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who experienced this. I bled them because I changed the fluid at the same time so I know I'm not low. Since there are two valves on each caliper, do I have to do one before the other?

---------- Post added at 05:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:09 PM ----------

Also, when I changed it, I took off one of the calipers as I wasn't used to these kind of calipers. The brake fluid started to drip but I put it back together and didn't think that would cause any difference.
 
Wow, so I feel dumb... My Fuel sensor got stuck and didn't show that I had a full tank after a fill up so since it was under warranty, I took it in to be serviced. I told them about the brakes and they told me they would take a look at it. It turns out that when I was screwing around with the brake, I slightly bent one of the metal brake lines. This caused the brake fluid not to be constant leading to soft brakes. Only one was bent so thats why it worked when after pumping the brakes. Well I should be getting the FX back either today or tomorrow and I'm just happy its going to be resolved. For now I'm driving a '12 G25 Loaner around.

P.S. Thanks to everyone who posted trying to help me figure this out.
 
Thanks everyone! and yes PMG, you were right.

jdTrader said:
Can you tell us more about the above? what you noticed, what they said, what was fixed, etc?
Click to expand...

I was almost out of gas and so I completely filled up. When I turned the car back on, the meter only showed half full. With half a day of use, it fell and said I had a range of 0 miles yet the tank was recently filled up. That when I set up an appointment to get it serviced. They said the floater that is in the gas tank probably get stuck to some dirt on the bottom of the gas tank and that they will just replace it.
 
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