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Brakes not working well

half-breed

Charter Member
Full Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2002
Messages
1,131
Location
Chicago (Woodstock) area
My son is 3 hours away at college in the quad cities. He has an internship and needs to cross the Mississippi river each day to get to work. Very narow two lanes both ways on the interstate. A month and a half ago he had to do a panic stop, and in the process blew the rear brake line (2003 EXT). He got all new brake lines and 3 calipers had to be replaced, I think they busted bleeders, even though the car had brakes all around a little over 2 years ago.

This morning he again had to do a panic stop, slammed on the brakes hard. They took him from 60 to 10 no issues, then the pedal went nearly to the floor and he had almost no brakes to get to zero. After that everything worked fine.

What would cause the sudden drop of the brake pedal and limited braking after it worked going from 60 to 10? He took it to a Minekie shop, and they think maybe it is the master. Could it be the booster? Any other ideas?
 
Could be air in the lines from the original installation of new lines. May just need a full bleed. I would start there. If you don't use a tech 2 when you totally lost your fluid level it is possible air was still entrapped in the lines. I have personally had issues with other vehicles after replacing a line when I lost all the fluid in the process that I needed to bleed the brakes and go back a month or so later and bleed them again to get additional air out.

If that fails it then if the flexible lines haven't been replaced I would replace all 5 of those. The flexible lines can have the interior section either collapse (would feel like a hard brake but no braking action) or have it tear allowing fluid to go between the interior of the tube and the protective covering (Feel like you lost some braking action but don't actually have any fluid loss. Should see the line balloon up though in most cases if this is the case. )  But regardless on an '03 if they haven't been replaced I would suggest that. Also check for fluid loss at the calipers as well. I had one of my caliper seals go on my calipers about a month after I installed them. Rock auto replaced the bad caliper with no problem since was under 90 days.

If you go through all that and still has same issue then I would look at the master cylinder.

Personally if it were me anyhow.

Rodney
 
Well since you have new brake lines already I would go with your mechanic and replace the master cylinder the seals are probaly shot. If it were the booster you still would have good brakes but it would be very hard to pust the brake pedal down. Escalades came with hydro boost brakes which add the power for steering and brake so if the booster went bad so would the power steering and he would notice that.

PS tell him to slow down sitting so high he should be able to see traffic ahead there is no excuse for running into the back of a car.
 
It is a tough road during rush hour. Two lanes each way there is a barrier on the left side of the fastlane and a barrier on the right side of the right lane, very tight. Lots of on ramps, everyone cuts you off to get into the left lane. He was doing fine until the brake issue. He said that it happened once he got slowed to 10 MPH from 50+, and then it was as if he had no brakes at all. I have driven on the bridge and hate it. I get in the left lane and get close to the guy in front of me.
 
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