Hi everyone,

I've been experiencing pretty bad brake performance recently, at first I thought the pads/discs had worn down but after whacking a wheel off, there is plenty of meat left on the pads and the discs seem to be fine too.

What hadn't occured to me was to check the brake fluid level. It sits right above the minimum line on the filler. The brakes feel quite "spongy" at the moment and the pedal needs to be pushed quite far to get a good braking force, can this be solved by adding brake fluid or has something else gone wrong else where?

1. Checked for leaks?


2. Any brakes binding?


3. Could be master cylinder seal


4. When was the fluid last changed and all callipers bled?


5. Have you taken it o an MOT centre and given them a few quid to test brake pressure 'off-piste'?

Thanks AB!

I have checked for leaks, can't see any fluid around or under the car or in the engine bay.

There us a rotational relate squeak coming from the rear left of the car on occasion. Stops when braking or not moving, could this indicate brake binding?

No idea when or if the fluid has been changed unfortunately. Does seem to be a nice golden colour though.

Is the master cylinder seal a big job/problem ?

The master cylinder may be leaking internally so you won't necessarily see it.

They sometimes fail if the car hasn't been used regularly.

Two things:


1. Squeaky rear brakes - see here


https://www.fiatforum.com/panda/340566-100hp-squeaky-squeak-rear-brakes.html


2. Brake fluid
Personally I'd start with the cheapest option. Get a bottle of fluid and then set about bleeding the brakes, replacing the fluid. Weather will be crap this weekend and fluid is cheap enough. Pray that the bleed nipples aren't seized so soak with WD40/Plusgas overnight.

There could be a Servo fault as well.

To check if the Servo holds enough vacuum, long enough.

1, Pump the pedal a few times with the engine off to deplete the servo of any vacuum still in there. The pedal should stiffen up quite a bit after 3 or 4 pumps.

2, Push the pedal down with just enough force to hold it in it's furthest postion down.

3, Start the engine.
The pedal should drop a small way under your foot as the vacuum kicks in.
Again, hold it there with just enough pressure.

4, While still holding the pedal lightly with your foot, turn the engine off and start counting.

5. You should be able to count to 20 seconds or more without the pedal pushing back up against your foot.
If it pushes back up sooner, the Servo or vacuum pipe to it is leaking.

Goudrons said:

There could be a Servo fault as well.

To check if the Servo holds enough vacuum, long enough.

1, Pump the pedal a few times with the engine off to deplete the servo of any vacuum still in there. The pedal should stiffen up quite a bit after 3 or 4 pumps.

2, Push the pedal down with just enough force to hold it in it's furthest postion down.

3, Start the engine.
The pedal should drop a small way under your foot as the vacuum kicks in.
Again, hold it there with just enough pressure.

4, While still holding the pedal lightly with your foot, turn the engine off and start counting.

5. You should be able to count to 20 seconds or more without the pedal pushing back up against your foot.
If it pushes back up sooner, the Servo or vacuum pipe to it is leaking.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I've tried this but my leg might not be sensitive enough to tell when the pedal is pushing back!

I'm getting quite worried about this now as I had to brake very hard earlier and all I got was squealing and hardly any stopping.

Brake performance is dramatically better when giving the pedal a tap before braking. It feels the same as it did when I first had the car.

I checked the brake fluid and it looked like the reservoir was empty. However upon removing the cap, the reservoir was so full the black filter in the reservoir floated up.

I'd rather not have to take it back to the dealer to do warranty work as they're a right pain. So is there anything I can do to restore my brake performance?

Your symptoms - giving the pedal a tap before braking - suggest to me a possible sticking caliper.
There are several good threads covering freeing up calipers, which do tend to 'bind' after a while. Not a difficult job, and the results are really good.

Thanks sweetsixteen. I'm going to have a look at the callipers and bleed my brakes on Tuesday. Till then I guess I'll just park the car up

Sorry to hijack the thread. My brakes feel a bit spongy and the handbrake light is staying on (even when the handbrake is off). I think it's low on brake fluid, but I'm not sure I'm looking at the right thing! (and my Haynes manual is 100 miles away )
It is a dynamic multi-jet diesel (if I recall correctly, the diesel engines look different to the petrol ones)
The thing I'm looking at is at the back of the engine on the right, behind the battery and to the left of the fuse box (if you're standing in front of the car, so right = passenger side). It has a yellow cap on it that says "warning clean filler cap before removing use only dot 4 fluid from a sealed container" and has an octagonal symbol with something that looks like this (o) inside of the octagon and says "tutela top 4" underneath. (sorry, can't figure out how to post photos on here!)
I'm pretty sure that is the brake fluid reservoir, but want to be sure before I put any brake fluid in it (don't want to be putting brake fluid where it doesn't belong!). I've seen the symbol on the filler cap before, but can't remember what it's for!
Does anyone else have a diesel pandy and have a photo so they can point out the brake fluid reservoir to me? or does anyone have a Haynes-esque drawing of the engine that they could point it out to me on?

That's where my (LHD) brakefluidcontainer is.
Low level will cause the handbrakewarninglight to come on.
Check where the fluid has gone. It is a closed circuit and normally betwenn min and max will be enough to cover wear on the pads and disks.

And if it feels spongy now it's possible that air has been sucked in and the brakes need to be bled.

gr J

That was my next thought, but I think I know now! I think my offside rear cylinder is leaky (nice big wet patch under the offside rear wheel & looks like the inside of the wheel is wet too).

So, next question! How easy is it to change rear cylinders? I've (helped) do it before on a classic panda. (I do remember it being a bit of a pain on the classic pandy, but not sure if that was just because the drums had rusted up.) Is it basically the same? Or does the ABS mean something has to be done differently? And do both rear cylinders need to be replaced at the same time?

Edit to add: I was planning on taking all the wheels off to bleed the system anyway, but if I'm replacing cylinder(s) I'll obviously do that first.

Thanks in advance

yes, pretty similar,
I find rears a pain..,

slacken off handbrake,
then try and get hubs off- there is a thread for jacking..!!

Charlie

Spongey brakes can sometimes occur if the handbrake needs adjusting. If it comes up too far and doesn't seem to be holding, that could be the answer.

Getting back on topic, I have had the car looked at by a mechanic. The diagnosis from a drive is that the brake pads have glazed from overheating, due to the frequent use of brakes on the road rally I took part in.

Not had the pads out of the callipers yet though so not confirmed, will however be having a look at them on Thursday before doing anything.

Only thing I'm not sure of is why my brake performance is significantly better when pumping the brake before braking.

Yadash said:

Only thing I'm not sure of is why my brake performance is significantly better when pumping the brake before braking.

Click to expand...

This sounds like air in the system.