brakes

K

kayaker37

True Classic
Test drove an X today, it's been a while, but the brakes didn't stop that quick. The seller had changed the pads at some point in the last few years, and hasn't put a lot of miles on it. He said you really just have to push down hard, and that it was due to non-power assist?. Granted I've been driving my wife's Accord which have truly amazing brakes, having found that out driving on the turnpike in stop and go traffic, meaning 70mph to 0mph, and repeat. Wasn't paying attention to one of the 0mph sections.

How good are the X's brakes supposed to be?
 
Not that bad.

It's a fair assessment to compare them to 'power assisted' brakes.

The X's that I've owned have never been just wantingly weak at all. If anything, I've always enjoyed the feel and road feedback that you just don't get with a power assist. I don't think the X even needs it.

Some gripe about the brakes, I think they are more than adequate.

I think there is an additional factor at work here. From experience, the tendency to drive the X more aggressively
because of the sheer fun factor naturally yields braking characteristics that are different than, say, a Honda Accord. To put it more bluntly, you just want to drive the pi** out of an X. This exposes and exacerbates braking sensitivity, overheat, etc., in a way that you would not notice in another car.
 
Mr. Kayak...

My humble 26 years with Black Tooth has shown me that a good fresh set of pads AND rotors, along with a 60 or 50 series tire and experimenting with air pressure... gives one braking performance that is more than satisfactory.

Do replace any flex lines and rebuild any leaking calipers... all if one is leaking... flush the system every few years and bleed.

The pedal is hard... like stepping on concrete... and just add more and more pressure until the front wheels start to lock, and back off.

I've found a STATIC bit of weight transfer foward via lowering the front 2" helps to eliminate this lock up problem also.

So many are enthralled with adding larger rotors and multi-piston calipers... but if this car has a tendency to lock them up in the first place... I think this is probably only going to enhance the problem.

Again... the tires, rake, rotors, pads and tire pressure are probably the areas you should focus on... and a complete overhaul is around $350 in parts. That will do one axle with just turned rotors and pads at a Honda Dealership.
 
"Didn't stop that quick" sounds wrong

Does the car stop smoothly and straight?

The pedal should be very firm, responding more to pressure than to movement... but hard pressure should make things happen quickly. There's no power assist, but the car is light enough and the brakes efficient enough that you can lock the wheels without undue exertion - and that's as much braking as you can use.

I'd suspect air in the system if you find yourself thinking that the car isn't stopping quickly enough... especially because dearly though we love the X engine, it's not exactly sized to get you in over your head in a hurry.
 
Hard pedal is also indicative of...

A caliper whose piston is stuck or sticky, usually a front, especially if the handbrake assy is working freely. Just one piston that doesn't move will make the brakes noticably stiff.

In the braking system, the first 1/2 of pedal travel through the master cylinder activates the rears, the bottom half of the pedal mainly activates the fronts. How much the pedal travels before getting stiff can help diagnose as well. If it travels half-way down and gets stiff it may be the fronts.

If its one of the fronts, you should feel the wheel pull to the side that is not gripping. If its one of the rears, you won't
feel or tell.

-M
 
seemed low

the brakes seemed to catch low and when I pressed harder the pedal went even lower. It felt more soft than hard. Perhaps a little bit of air in the system. I hadn't driven one in a while, so I just took a leisurely drive.

On the other hand I took a Miata out about two weeks ago that was owned by a woman. She wasn't home when I took it out, but her husband was. He took me out, then I took my wife on the same route, then I took my daughter out. On the way back to their house I had a little fun with it, testing the acceleration, braking, manuevering, then noticed a car behind me. Then it started following me. Right back into the driveway! It was the owner, thought it was a cop. So I've been more than nice to the test cars since.
 
Black-Tooth said:
I've found a STATIC bit of weight transfer foward via lowering the front 2" helps to eliminate this lock up problem also.
Click to expand...

Never thought of this.
I've just lowered the front and am in doubt if I will also do the back.
I like the looks...but now have a technical reason :)
 
Yep... the LOOK works for me too...

... but I always TRY to have FORM follow FUNCTION... and in this case I believe I have a valid excuse as well.

Measuring at the rocker panel just behind the front wheel and just in front of the rear whell, I am about 1/4 inch lower in the front.

A perfect "rake", IMHO.
 
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