Hello,

On my car, you have to press the brake pretty far for it to start braking. It still brakes fine, it's not like the pedal drops to the floor and it can't stop... it just starts braking pretty far down. It's always been like this, I can still easily slam on the brakes and lock them up so it never bothered me.

Now, one time I brought it in to my mechanic for an oil change, he said that my master cylinder needs to be changed that's why it's doing that. I trust this guy 100% he is very honest and mostly deals with Hondas.

So I put it on my "to do" list and was gonna take car of it sometime later on.

Then I needed an alignment and my mechanic doesn't do alignments so I brought it somewhere else for that. The guy that drove my car freaked out and was like "omg your car is so unsafe the brakes are so bad" yadayada... so I'm like "yea I know I have to change the master cylinder" and he said that no, that's not the problem. He said that I have to adjust my rear brakes. He said that's also why my handbrake doesn't' grip right away (it works perfectly and holds the car strong, you just have to pull it a bit high). He was saying how the other mechanic is trying to rip me off because he'll make a lot of $ changing the master cylinder, and that he will charge me $30 to adjust my rear brakes and for sure the pedal won't drop that far anymore. He also to be seemed 100% honest and not trying to take advantage..

I said thanks but no thanks, because I know how to adjust brakes and it's easy so I figured I would just do it. And I did a few days ago. Now, my handbrake grips much sooner, like right away, and to be honest it does brake better than before, but you still have to push the pedal pretty far down for it to brake. Now, I'm going to adjust it a little bit more but I'm pretty sure it's not going to fix it, because I already adjusted it a lot.

So, what does Honda Tech say? My brake fluid looks a bit dirty so I was going to bleed them after I re-adjust them to flush out the old fluid and see if it helps..

But, do you guys think it's the master cylinder, or no? I almost want to go back to that second mechanic and pay him $30 to re adjust my brakes and see (but I'm 99% sure it won't do anything different since I adjusted them quite a bit already) just for my peace of mind as to what the problem is, and which mechanic was wrong...

 

loosen the parking brake cable, ajust the rears if drums till they just rub a little, ajust theparking brake to one notch then tighten the cable till the rears rub a little more, release the parking brake and make sure they spin without rubbing. Bleed the system again. Start the engine, try the pedal, pump it hard to settle the valves. If it's working the brakes but just low to the floor, ajust the threaded rod behind the pedal, it's a 12mm wrench/nut and threaded into the pedal, lengthern it a little (clockwise), not to much till the pedal has 1/4" to 3/8" free play.

 

Thanks.

If I want to completely flush the old brake fluid out, do I simply bleed the brakes until "clean" fluid starts coming out? Because doesn't doing that just mix the old fluid with the new one?? I want to completely get rid of the old one...

By "tighten the cable" do you mean the ebrake cable, which I can adjust via a screw in the handbrake area of the interior of the car?

 

The whole brake pedal adjustment thing imo is a bit extreme. I think both of ur mechanics are both right in their own respective manners. If its an older car and it has its original BMC (Brake Master Cylinder) then it could be worn out, especially if it is floored a lot, because if ur brake fluid is dirty and contains the slightest bit of sediments then those sediments are eating away at the BMC over time. My car acts up in a similar fashion and what helped me a lot is replacing the front rotors/pads, tightening the rear drum brakes via the turn star thingy, and bleeding the lines. If ur rotors/pads look fine then dont waste the money, but I recomend you try everything else first. If u still feel that ur brakes arent where you want them to be, then yes, look into a new BMC and/or Rear disc brakes lol ... As for flushing out the system, use the HT search feature, im sure someone posted up a DIY somewhere. Goodluck.

 

I chased a "weak" brake pedal for a longtime and spent a lot of $$$. Then one day I decided to remove the front pads and found the the wear sensors were hanging up keeping the pads from fully contacting the rotor.

Problem fixed, hope it's that simple.

There are also brake trouble shooting in the Honda manual. do you have it?