Zwoobah

I have no idea what's wrong with my braking system. The pedal is very squishy and requires a lot of travel, but the car will stop well if I hammer the brakes. The initial feel sucks though and stops from high speed are not confidence inspiring. I flushed the fluid recently, which slightly improved braking feel, but not enough. I checked the proportioning valve adjustment according to the bentley procedure, and it's set properly. ABS works.

Symptoms:
1)Squishy Pedal with too much travel
2)BRAKE light on at all times
3)Passes the bomb test, did 48 pumps and pedal still did not get hard
4)When I still had the summer wheels on, the rear wheels would get a lot more brake dust buildup than the fronts. This is the reverse of what's logical and every other car I've ever seen. Can't tell is this is still happening since I'm running black steelies for the winter.

Any ideas? A 3800lb car with this much power needs working brakes! TIA

The Crapple

air in the system?

ThetaTau87

My CQ had the same symptoms. It felt just like air in the system. I tried bleeding the brakes several times, but it didn't help much. Next I replaced the rubber brake hoses because they looked pretty ratty and that fixed it. I had a firm pedal and great feel.

When removing the old hoses hit the tube nuts for 30-45 seconds with a propane torch. Long enough to heat them up, but not so long to burst the rubber hose (wear safety glasses just in cast!) This will prevent the nuts from rounding off when you try to loosen them. Don't even consider trying to get them off w/o heating first. Actually, it doesn't do any harm to burst the old hoses, but it will give you a good scare when it pops!

Zwoobah

I put Autotech stainless lines on my GTI, so I have a full set of closed-loop brake line wrenches...no rounding them off! I'll hit em with the PB Blaster and propane anyway though, can't hurt.

I also need to make sure that none of my front caliper slides are seized up. The lack of brake dust on the front wheels makes me wonder if they're working.

MikeL

From SJM site:

One test for the accumulator, is to run the engine for a few minutes, turn off the engine, and then pump the brake pedal until the pedal feels hard, (no more power assist). Normally with a good, working brake accumulator, this test takes 25-35 pumps on the pedal before the pedal gets hard. If the pedal gets hard with only a few pumps on the pedal, the brake accumulator is defective and should be replaced.