Brakes performance question....

[Joe K. 99 Zeee!!]

I've been wondering about the state of my brakes for some time now. Seems to me they should be working better....Here are a few reasons why I've been thinking this:

-Press the brake pedal and it'll hit the stop on the floor. Feels too "mushy" (for lack of a better term)
-Car will not brake hard enough on dry pavement to activate ABS
-Was driving the government Taurus and was astonished when I was impressed with the brakes on the car..(WTF???)

Now, I've done the obvious checks like brake pads and fluid level and even had the system checked at a couple different places while having other maintanence done. I've been told that they're functioning as they should.

Rotors are stock. Pads are PerfomanceFriction (replaced last year) and are still good.

Opinions? Maybe I'm just paranoid here.....

[Craig 2000 TA]

I would be concerned if it was me... doesn't seem right that the brake pedal goes all the way to the floor. I couldn't begin to tell you whats wrong though.

[RangerBob]

Brakes

Mine do the same thing. I will change the fluid and bleed the brakes if it ever stops raining here.

[Joe K. 99 Zeee!!]

I did a couple checks on the way back from work today. Pedal really only hits the stop when the car isn't moving. Also seems to stop okay at lower speeds (<40). It's just that I had an incident last weekend where I had to panic brake and avoided rear ending another car by mere inches. I remember I had a long time to think after I hit the brakes....like, "Boy, there's really nothing else I can do to avoid hitting this guy"...and...."I hope the guy behind me is hard on his brakes too!"....

afterwards I thought that maybe in that situation it was good that I didn't stop as fast as I wanted to in that the guy behind me would have hit me.

I think I'll have the fluid changed just for piece of mind....could be contaminated...you never know.

[Jeff_in_Atl]

It sounds like you need to bleed your brakes. Have you ever let the master cylinder run dry? If you have, and you put fluid in, you probably have a big air bubble in it somewhere. Dot 3 and 4 will absorb moisture over time. I switched to Dot 5 silicone a long time ago and had problems with it. The pedal every once in a while would go to the floor. I switched back to DOT 3 and it never did it again. Really weird.

[markd79ta]

Not good. First, bleed the brakes. If you don't have a buddy, get a vacum/pump system. If that doesn't solve the problem, check for a brake line leak (although, it doesn't sound like you are losing fluid.) You may have a seal going bad in your master cylinder.

[Joe 1320]

Definately do a complete fluid change. If that doesn't do it, it might be a good idea to make sure the brake bias is correct from from to back. The proportioning valve may be going bad as well. This would cause either the front or the back to be weak, requiring much more application of the brake pedal to get the same amount of stopping force. Ditto for the booser.

[Jeff_in_Atl]

Wouldn't that cause the one to loose brakes while one gains it? It's a proportioning valve or bias valve.

[Joe K. 99 Zeee!!]

True...but if you lose the front or rear brakes only, the other will still not have enough force to bring the car to a stop as fast as if all 4 are working.

A little random though here....This got me thinking of the brake system in the plane I used to fly. It used a shuttle valve that would switch positions to allow the front or rear cockpit to apply brakes individually...but if both hit the brakes the valve would nuetralize and braking would be lost.