Hello All,

I'm hoping someone can shed some light on a problem I'm having with my 2007 Fit Sport. It began about a week ago. When I try to stop fairly suddenly while driving 20mph or more, it takes about 1-2 seconds before the car stops. This is on dry asphalt . Before this started happening, the car would stop immediately when I braked. I took it to a mechanic this morning, and he just called to tell me that I have 75% of my brake pads left and everything looks fine. He even test drove the car and couldn't find anything wrong with it. I KNOW there is a problem with the brakes or the braking system (I almost hit a car that cut me off yesterday because my Fit wouldn't brake immediately), and I'm afraid to drive it. Any insights you can offer will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

I advise you take you mechanic for a ride as you know the correct situations in which the break delay the bite.

 

One theory I have is that your tires might be starting to get worn, so the ABS (which sucks on the Fit IMO) is detecting wheel lock earlier than when your tires had better tread. So the abs is coming on and you car is braking much later. Just throwing that idea out there.

 

Does the pedal feel normal? Are you able to push it down all the way easily, or are you sitting so far away that it's quite a stretch? Do they only activate when you pump the pedal?

There's a direct mechanical/hydraulic connection between the pedal and the brakes. The main thing I can think of that would cause the sensation of a delay is air getting into the brake lines, either from a leak or a bad master cylinder or improperly bleeding the system after service. In that case, though, there's a noticeable change in the pedal feel—it travels further, and doesn't feel solid at all.

Brake feel does normally vary slightly as the brakes age and self-adjust and so forth. Wet brakes also will cause trouble until they dry off.

 

If it is really two full seconds, then it is a serious hazard. My only advice is to take it to Sears and get the brake fluid flushed. They only charge like $35, that's all. Secondly, when I bought my '07 Sport, I immediately took it to my mechanic to have the rear shoes tightened. I was getting a terrible "delay" which actually was pedal fade at the top as a result of the rear brakes not doing their job. Like you, my brakes were still at 75% and at 94,000 miles. That's not right. After tightening the shoes and giving me a nice firm emergency brake, the car brakes just fine now. I would try those two simple and inexpensive things first before diving into a full master cylinder.
Have you ever had the brake fluid flushed before?

 

If it was ABS, he would have stated something about the pedal vibrating badly.


I put money on the brake system needing a full bleed. Get rid of all the old fluid and fill it with fresh DOT3 or DOT4 brake fluid.

Any real mechanic would have checked the level. Go out and check for yourself, and make sure the fluid does not look dark. Dark=contaminated with water and dirt!

 

Hey Burntz, is this adjustment the same as the parking brake adjustment?

 

If the rear brakes were completely gone, you STILL would not have a 2 second delay in braking. Braking performance would simply be much worse.

If drum adjustment is something you are worried about, DONT> the star wheels inside the drums are self adjusting. Sometimes, it may take a good speed in reverse, then hitting the brakes hard, to get them un-stuck and working.

 

It may just SEEM like it takes 2 seconds if your car doesn't slow when you expect...


My experience with Civics and Fits with rear drums:

Maybe the rear shoes are "self adjusting" to some extent, but if you tighten them up as I've posted in the past, they work a GREAT deal better. In fact, a friend whose wife's Civic had the brakes adjusted by me, complained because they were TOO effective (stopped faster than she expected).

Yes, this is the same adjustment that brings up the parking brake action....


So, give it a try (and lubricate the shoe/backing plate contact area, as well)

 

I'd rather just remove the center console and adjust it with the adjustment screw by the handbrake. Easier than removing the drum brake covers no?

 

Other than air in the system or a foreign substance on your brake discs (doubt you'd even notice if it was the rear drums) I can't imagine what would seem to cause a "delay" based upon the OP's description.

 

That adjusts the cables, not the brakes themselves

Two completely different adjustments. Although it is good to think of it.

 

Snap. Ok. I really have a delay in braking in winter and tightening the rear drums might help for sure. I'll try and do that before I switch to my winter/snow tires.

That might be why my car takes about half a block to stop on snow unless I use my hand brake. I suspect my rear drums are doing close to 0 braking! Such great info! Thanks everyone.

 

Like I said above, even if the rear brakes are GONE, not working at all, your car will STILL stop in a timely manner. The rear brakes on nearly all cars are only doing about 20-25% of the work. In some sporty cars with great vehicle weight balance, EX Mazda RX8, the rear brakes are probably doing closer to 30-35% to keep the car in balance even around hard corners while braking.

You need to verify the status of your brake system.

Most common reason for delayed braking is air in brake lines or cruddy fluid.

Second most common is the guide pins on the calipers seizing up and causing quite a lot more brake force to function. This could be the source of your delay if it is consistent. If it varies in any way, fluid is best thing to do.


Focus on getting that delay out. It is VERY dangerous to have that delay. You can adjust to poor braking performance. You cannot always adjust for a delay. And neither can that one dumbass driver who cuts you off in traffic so severely you hit him, and YOU are held responsible!

Be safe!

You can PM me if you need any info on checking those guide pins. Its very simple thing, but you NEED to clean and re-lube with proper brake caliper grease to get any sort of working life out of those guide pins!

 

I don't have the delay on dry pavement, only in the winter on snow. I have top of the line winter tyres on and my ABS goes haywire constantly. If I pull my handbrake, my car will come to a dead stop instantly thus I'm concluding that I'm braking on near 100% front brakes. The rear is "pushing" the car forward causing ABS to activate even at very low speeds. If the rear was assisting in braking, even slightly, I'm sure the ABS wouldn't be going off all the time, preventing my braking.

When I got my car inspected last summer at Honda, they said rear drums were at 95%. I'm over 55k miles on the odo...

 

your "top of the line" snow tires dont necessarily mean it will react even marginally close to pavement.

Even on the stock crappy dunlops, I rarely had the ABS kick in.

I suggest driving less aggressively, for starters.

Also, I drive my car fairly hard, and when I yanked the rear drums open for the second time at 40k miles, all was well for me.

Take the drum off, use some brake cleaner on the shoe, wipe it dry with a lint-free paper towel, and enjoy better braking.

Constant ABS action is usually from air in the lines or cruddy fluid. The ABS motor has a fluid pump, and will vibrate the pump if it has to work to improve fluid pressure

 

I did bleed the brakes last summer and changed it with Honda fluid. I made sure to do a two man technique with extra fluid in my collection bottle so even if my helper released the pedal, fluid not wire would get sucked in.

I do not drive aggressively in the winter on snow and ice. That would be suicide. I drive at or below 30 Km/h. Even at 30 or 20 km/h my car just won't stop unless I use the handbrake. If I use my handbrake, the car comes to a dead stop. That tells me that my car CAN stop but won't stop because of ABS. So I am confident that adjusting my rear shoes will provide more rear braking and will make my ABS not turn on as much.

 

I'm going to assume that there is a bit of exaggeration here and the OP is not experiencing a "1-2 second" delay. I would bet it's the ABS kicking in for a split second (which may seem like 1-2 seconds). Mine does it when I brake going over a bump on the road. Super annoying, as it's the most sensitive ABS system I've had (including many Honda's).

MTLian - If you're having to use the hand brake to stop, something is wrong with your front brakes/ABS sensors. Even with the overly-sensitive ABS, I stop just fine on crappy Hankook iPike snow tires. If your car truly does stop better with rear brakes, then it's somehow defying the laws of physics. Weight transfers to the front and also our cars are front-end heavy (weight over the braking wheel)--with little weight over the rear wheel, meaning less friction/resistence/stopping power, it will have little effect in braking.

 

This problem is in snowy conditions only, like in the whole street is covered in snow. I suspect it might be faulty ABS sensors. I guess I'll pick up a bottle of honda brake fluid and bleed the brakes for air in the system before winter to see if that's the problem.

It is normal to lose some traction but I suspect that with a rear brake adjustment, I'll be good to go.

 

I have to be honest, I do not feel the sensitivity of this ABS system. I certainly doubt my ABS is unique in some fashion. I certainly do not believe a honda abs system is unique in feeling to others. Feels just like any other properly functioning system. Mine has kick on only a slight handful of times, and she has over 40k miles on her now.

I drive dozens of different makes and models of vehicles all week as we fix and test and sell them at the shop I work at. I notice how some cars have a very DIFFERENT abs feel to them, but none so far have proved sensitive.


EDIT another thing to check is your brake pedal assembly. Use your hand as if it was your foot. Make sure it does something right away, rather then having an extended amount of travel before properly engaging brakes.

This is easier to figure out after car is off, and you have pumped the brake pedals 3-5 times to remove all vacuum assistance from the booster.