FNG here with a brake issue.

newtotoy

newtotoy

Active Member
Hey fella's, my first post other than the "introduction".
I'm at day 2 being a (used) Toyota Tacoma owner, I have some kind of a brake problem. During the test drive and an hour into the drive home from picking it up, everything felt/operated fine, and then the brakes on the off ramp of the hwy felt as if a line blew. The pedal got soft and was headed to the firewall. Pumping did bring it back with each stroke.
Well of course it was raining hard, so I made it back to the shop and let it dry over night. Today, no "wet" spots and the res. was fine, 1/2 between the full and add marks. In reading the owners literature, it looks as if the ABS sys. might be used for traction & handeling functions as well. There are no lights or warning's on the dash, but the pedal feel remind's me of how the pedal feels when the ABS is activated on one of my other vehicles (non Toyota) like on ice or snow. Any suggestions?
 
2012 4wd, 4cyl & a/t.
I gotta take some pics for an avatar but it's been sh!tty weather since I got it!
 
I don't understand. You are saying the pedal feels like you have an open line, and like and ABS activation and the two feel nothing alike.

If your pedal is all mushy and pumps up nicely, and you have no leaks and the fluid level is fine, bleed the brakes fully. Make sure new fluid is coming through the bleeder tube from every bleeder fitting. Your fluid is probably contaminated with water or air.

When you have water in the brake fluid, they feel fine at the beginning of a drive. As the brakes get used, the fluid heats up and the water boils causing the mushy pedal. When things cool off, everything feels fine again, until the next episode.

If that doesn't fix it, your master cylinder is probably shot. If you can pump the brakes up, and the pedal does not continue to go to the floor once pumped up, the master should be good to go and the fluid is probably bad.

ABS activation feels like a hard pulsation in the pedal and usually the systems are noisy making a "graunching" noise when activated. The pedal is still firm. If you want to know what an ABS activation feels like, take a vehicle with a known good brake system out to a safe place and after ensuring nobody is around you, get the car up to about 35mph and stomp on the brake pedal as hard as you can. It's a lot easier to do this when it is wet, but it works in the dry too.
 
Thanks WiskyT, I could have described it better. The pedal moves similar to an ABS event, but no pulsation and or the sound that my Ford's & Chebby's make when the ABS activates. It also happens cold ( 1st brake use of the day) or hot. Like I said, I only have a few hours of "seat time" in this truck, so past experience in this truck is really zero. The brakes did work properly earlier in the day during the test drive, and most of the way home, and only has 45k miles.
Now that you mention it, a master cyl. makes sence, maybe a seal "let go", I just have never had one go bad so I didn't consider that being the problem, in fact I don't think I've ever had to replace one on any vehicle including work trucks with 200k miles.
That's a much cheaper place to start then fooling with the ABS system!:D
 
Well I havn't removed any wheels yet, but with ths problem coming on instantly, I thought that the MC was a reasonable place to start, and being X-mas eve, called NAPA to see what they had. Re man $59, cool, but they do not stock it as a company. I quess that means at least in the NE region! Then I called another smaller local chain of auto parts stores, and they did not have a listing for price and do not stock it in their company! I guess that at least means the N.E. region. That pretty much tells me that they don't go bad. Hmmm.
 
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lt's not a bad idea to bleed it anyway. lt only takes a couple of small bubbles or a drop of water to really screw you up.
 
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