Brake issues

[devinlamothe]

Hi there. OK so I just had my car in for repair due to an accident, and the first thing I noticed with the rental car I got was WOW the brakes work!

When I got my car back I noticed it is extremely difficult to stop lol. I have the carbotech slotted/drilled rotors with the carbotech pads, I don't know what is the issue. It takes a LOT of force to stop, basically I have to slam them on to stop the car.

Could this just mean I need to bleed or new pads as well?

Also, what type of pads should I be using with the slotted rotors? I don't have a lot of $ at the moment for carbotech.

[127.0.0.1]

Originally Posted by devinlamothe

Hi there. OK so I just had my car in for repair due to an accident, and the first thing I noticed with the rental car I got was WOW the brakes work!

When I got my car back I noticed it is extremely difficult to stop lol. I have the carbotech slotted/drilled rotors with the carbotech pads, I don't know what is the issue. It takes a LOT of force to stop, basically I have to slam them on to stop the car.

Could this just mean I need to bleed or new pads as well?

Also, what type of pads should I be using with the slotted rotors? I don't have a lot of $ at the moment for carbotech.

any pads work with slotted rotors

bleed all brakes lines and abs before trying anything else.

[Lafiro]

My dads old car did this.

I found it very dangerous.

I then found out that the back two wheels applied absolutely no brakes at all(tested).

But the e-brake worked perfectly. We couldn't figure it out, so we went ahead and changed out the rotors/drums, pads/shoes, and all of a sudden, the car stopped fine!

So this is my theory. And perform these steps:

Is the ebrake doing almost nothing for you, and you have to lift it a lot to get any kind of response?

If so, continue to do the following:

With the right tools, take off the back wheels, and then take off the rotors.
- I will assume you have never done this.

You will probably need a mask as you do NOT want to breathe in any brake dust when it comes off, and for the next step. Go ahead and in a bag on top of cardboard or wood, hit the drums so the dust comes out, and wipe with a rag, and then with a dust-off compressed air can, blow out any dust in the mechanical parts of the drum. THis is done to both sides.

Then, I will assume your shoes are cracking, and are very thin? If you know how to change the drum breaks, then go ahead, but be warned, if you don't, its a BITCH to get the parts back together and you will regret it.

One step you can do, even without changing the shoes, is go ahead and turn the star wheel maybe 4 clicks. Put the drum back on, and spin. If it goes around too easy, take it off, and click the wheel once more. Keep doing this until there is a little resistance. Do this to both sides, put everything back together.

Get in the car, turn it on, pump the brakes about 10 times or so.

Then go for a short ride. If I am right, you will notice a world of difference. And a major difference once those rear shoes are changed(assuming they are worn).

Someone please confirm all of what I said before he tries this.

[devinlamothe]

The ebrake does have to be lifted almost all the way for it to work, so it may just be the rear shoes that need to be changed. When I have some time I will try taking a wheel off and checking to see what you've said.

[markitect]

Your shoes probably don't actually need to be changed. The auto adjusters are designed to only work when your backing up, and often don't do their job.

Somewhere on here there is a tutorial on how to adjust your rear brakes. All you need is a small flathead screwdriver once you have the wheel and drum off. I would do this first as it is easy, whereas you can make things worse if you mess up bleeding the brakes.


Also can you describe the petal feel better?

If it is squishy for the first bit, and you get no braking, then it firms up and your start braking as you push down further, then you probably need to bleed.

If the pedal is hard to push down the entire time so you have to push down hard, but the braking is linear to how far the pedal has travelled then your brake booster isn't getting enough vacume (you have a leak probably caused by the accident)

[Lafiro]

The original thread is not working, but you can read it.
http://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12333

This is a thread with a few pictures of what has to be turned, and it will click each time it is turned just a bit.
http://www.yarisworld.com/forums/sho...ight=drum+dust

Since you do have the e-brake problem, follow the steps that I mentioned, without replacing the shoes, but do take pictures of them and post and we will let you now if its also a good idea to change them soon or not.

Do that, and then get back to us.

[Lafiro]

Although my ebrake is not just a little more loose, and my stopping feels more like its just the front again(you will know when the front dips and it feels like your applying to much brakes, you really are and thats when its time to adjust the drums!)

So in other words, since I want to get the rims off and out my stock wheels on for the winter, I will be performing the same steps as I described, and if for some reason you have not yet done what I said above, I will get pictures of the whole thing.

[Henry G.]

After about 30k I noticed the brakes, well, sucked. The E-brake was also near the top of its travel to set the parking brake. SO I decided to adjust the rear brakes. They did not want to come off, at first leading me to believe they were adjusted fine. Not the case. They wear the drums and leave a little rim of unworn material on the inside edge of the drum, making them hard to remove, you have to tighten two metric bolts into the tapped holes on the outside of the drum (thats why those holes are there) to get them loose. Once I did there was plenty to adjust. Blow them clean(do not inhale the dust). I then lightly sanded the drums and the shoes clean, there was LOTS of material left, in fact the shoes looked brand new. There is a star wheel in there that you adjust slowly, if its clicking your turning it the right way, if not youre not, watch it you can see the adjuster lengthening. Do a few clicks, then replace the drum and check. When you can just put the drum on without forcing it, its set. Obviously you need to block the tires and have the e brake off while doing this. Now the e brake sets firmly after only a couple inches of travel, and the car stops way better. Probably a good idea to do about every 15k. Took about 45 minutes for both sides, and you will get dirty hands, good idea maybe every other tire rotation.

[devinlamothe]

Just to be clear about the 'feeling' of the brake pedal - it is firm for like half a second, then squishy all the way to the floor. Feels like I have no braking power until the last second.

I have never changed the rear shoes but have changed the front rotors and pads at around 70,000km (now at 140,000km).

I think I may just need to bleed and re-adjust the rear, and maybe change the front pads.

[Lafiro]

Did you bother to do anything stated?

[devinlamothe]

Originally Posted by Lafiro

Did you bother to do anything stated?

Not recently, had a bad stint with food poisoning over the last 10 days and I'm still recovering.

[Henry G.]

Originally Posted by devinlamothe

Just to be clear about the 'feeling' of the brake pedal - it is firm for like half a second, then squishy all the way to the floor. Feels like I have no braking power until the last second.

I have never changed the rear shoes but have changed the front rotors and pads at around 70,000km (now at 140,000km).

I think I may just need to bleed and re-adjust the rear, and maybe change the front pads.

Sounds like bad master cylinder

[Lafiro]

Alright, feel better.

Lets find out if what I said works out better for him first, because I've done what I said to two cars that had that issue, one worse then the other, just like he describes, yet I bet worse(almost crashed numerous times in the rain because the front tires would lock up and the back would do nothing except still ahve foward force from the engine).

Then if for some reason its still bad after cleaning/adjusting it like I suggested, then go ahead and have a tech look at the master brake cylinder.

[devinlamothe]

Well I've just decided to get new pads + shoes all around, and will get the rears adjusted when I get them put on. It snowed a lot here recently so there is no where to do this myself ... hopefully this will ultimately fix my issues.

[Sir A.Y. Atoyot]

The Yaris has about the most ordinary, generic brakes possible, front and rear. Any brake shop should be able to do first-rate work on your car - no necessity for a dealership.

[devinlamothe]

Originally Posted by Sir A.Y. Atoyot

The Yaris has about the most ordinary, generic brakes possible, front and rear. Any brake shop should be able to do first-rate work on your car - no necessity for a dealership.

Nah, I only go to the stealership to do oil changes. Everything else goes to a friend of mine who works at Midas. They are ace when it comes to most things, especially breaks.

[devinlamothe]

OK update: going to be installing the new pads & shoes tomorrow. Will let you guys know if this resolves anything. Hopefully it does as the roads here are mad icy.

[devinlamothe]

OK so here's what happened. Took off the fronts tires, checked the pads. Still at around 75% new.

Rears were at around 60% new, springs were still perfect so no need to replace.

However, the problem was with the rears. They were so far out of adjustment they were barely working at all. So I had them re-adjusted and now braking is fine.

The guy did say the rotors I bought (slotted/holed) were crap, and that one of them was slightly warped, so I will be getting some OEM rotors pretty soon and just replacing the fronts.

I am relieved that's all it was.