unresolved777

so its kinda raining outside, and i noticed on my way home from school i had to brake a couple times. ease on the brakes not slam and when i would ease on the brakes it would take a couple seconds for the car to start to slow down. i was talking to my dad, he says it may be that water is getting to the brakes, more so on the rotors and when braking the pad is getting wet and is trying to "dry" itself to make contact with the rotor, and that there may be a tin "film" of water building up. its not the tires cuz when i brake they arent slipping or "flying" as he said. anyone else experience this before, cuz this just started randomly happening, or do you know of any other cause that it could be?

ack154

iTrader: (7)

Any moisture on the pads or rotors would be evaporated almost instantly with the friction from the brakes. If you noticed any decrease in braking because of it, it would usually only be once and very minor - certainly not a "couple seconds."

Has anything been done with your brakes recently? Or rather, when was the last time anything was done? How does the pedal feel? Firm? Squishy?

unresolved777

thats what i was thinking but its happens a few times. school is about 20 miles from my house, and i had to brake a couple times and almost everytime it did it, and was not minor it was a couple of seconds.

as for whats been done, its an 05 tC, i changed front brake pads last year in March because the OE ones started getting noisy, turned the rotors too, but honestly i didnt need a change cuz they were still perfect (like they were from the factory). everything else hasnt beed touch, rear i left alone cuz tose are great...
pedal has a squishy feel at first touch then gets firm.

unresolved777

oh and front brake pads are those wagner thermo quiet ones.

tC_litigator

hey, the same thing happened to me a while back. It was sooo scary. I thank God that i was only in the parking lot when it happened. The pedal traveled the normal distance (from what i can remember) and the car just would not stop. I had to e-brake it. I let it run for a while....sit for a while, and then drove it home. The funniest part about all of that, was the CEL came on.

After i got home, and shut off the car, the next day, the ligth wasn't on. About a week later, however, it happened again. On my way to the dealership everything cleared up and it hasn't happened since. The dealer said the CEL history pulled an O2 sensor code so they replaced that under warranty. It was the weridest thing though.... Hope yous isn't the same

Cisco_TeamShogun

iTrader: (5)

05 Scion TC? Have you had your brake liquid checked or replaced? Is your liquid Dark? burnt looking? of so getting your brake liquid flush may aid. How many miles do you have?

I have an 05 TC and I had brake problems, my one caliper was not compressing right. It wasnt the actual cilindar, but the screw you unscrew to change the pads somehow became frozen, it wouldnt budge so my pads were being worned out unevenly. After many arguments with Team Toyota, a friend and I took matters to our own hand, replaced the connecting arm (kinda looks like a c, where the rest of the caliper connects to the car) and that did the trick, since it replaced the frozen screw.

draxcaliber

driver's ed 101 guys. water and moisture makes brakes get wet. wet brakes experience decreased friction leading to lowered braking performance. hence, when driving in wet conditions, it is important to pump the brakes in anticipation of a stop to 1. check the braking performance and 2. pumping the brakes helps dry them off.

brakes are extremely susceptible to decreased performance in the rain briefly. driving every week from laytonsville md to frostburg md, on the extremely rainy days, i would notice that after long periods of driving without braking, that when slowing down to take an on-ramp. the brakes would initially have no bite, but a few quick short pumps and they were just fine.

unresolved777

have checked the fluid. when i changed my front pads last year i added some, bled the brakes a little. not dark/burnt, still looks exactly the same as from the factory, about 61200ish miles.. thinking about changing to stop tech stage 2 soon hopefully.
and draxcaliber i didnt have time to pump my brakes when i almost rearended the guy that cut me off this morning. but i did try that when i headed off to school again earlier, after a few minutes id try it again, but its like a matter of minutes that it happens.

draxcaliber

no matter. if you slam on the brakes, the ABS pumps the brakes and they'll dry off. just remember it when driving that your stopping distances will always be greater so take it easy and maintain proper following distances.

TJKASS

I must concur with drax on this one. In the wet, you will experience decreased initial bite as a film of water will begin to reside on the surface of the pad, and when you first go to apply the brakes, the film will boil, make steam, and that steam will form tiny "cylinders" in the pits on the surface of the pad material, essentially keeping the pad from fully contacting the disc. drilled/slotted rotors will help negate this effect (as it is generally the same as pads "off gassing" when they get too hot), by providing places for the gas to escape. Pumping the brakes will also help as A. it will allow you to firm the pedal and get more effective pressure on the pads, and B. the in/out motion gives the water/gas mixture time to escape between pumps.

This is another very important reason that factors into why racecars run slotted rotors, and street cars can even find them advantageous. Also, some newer merc's will actually cycle the brakes lightly when youre driving in the wet to help remove that film. The moral of the story is tho that you should just be sure to give yourself 1.5-2 times the stopping distance in the wet, no matter how good your car is.

unresolved777

TJKASS i should have actually elaborate and pointed out that i am no noob (<<my word of the month) at stuff like this, in fact im much aware, my over all point (what i should have clarified but didnt since i was rushing to and from 2 different schools at the time) is that this just started happening randomly... it is completly different than what ive experienced before. like WAY different than before to where its not a brief amount of milliseconds but whole seconds to where the car just continues going and takes forever for the pads to finally bit. in fact TJKASS youre in austin, tx... youre aware of the recent amount of rain san antonio has been getting right?? all the rain in november/december/january, never had this brake problem then, just started last week.. that what im trying to say.

rangerryda

iTrader: (1)

Is the pedal travel the same as before when this is happening or does the pedal go down further than usual? BUT the above information is accurate and they were merely trying to help you understand the intricacies of braking if you didn't already know. As a fail-safe, you can always bleed the brakes to make sure there isn't any air in the lines. Random malfunctions in brakes/clutches/coolant tends to be because of air in the system. Just FYI.

unresolved777

oh yeah rangerryda thats why im here to solve this, its just that since it all started randomly recently since weve been having rain here almost every week since november, it concerns me since it just started. i even noticed that when slowly down that there is a knock in the brakes, more or less the drivers side. and when i release the pedal it makes a weird noise as well, like if something is lose, or one of the pads actually popped out of place. so i need to look nto that... pedal travel is the same though, but instead of it being firm from the touch, its squishy at first then takes time to get firm. <<<< only when raining, dry weather its firm..

rangerryda

iTrader: (1)

I would take the calipers and pads off to make sure nothing is out of place. Check to see if they have even wear and check the free movement of the pistons.

unresolved777

well i checked the brakes, removed calipers checked pads, no uneven wear everything seems good. though it did look like something came in contact with the right caliper, cuz it was scratch/scarred, but it didnt seem to be the rotor or anything else. maybe the rocks from my recently crappy built road around my nieghborhood, cuz thsoe rocks were even in the lower arms of the front suspension.

rangerryda

iTrader: (1)

You might want to look into getting a new caliper if it is damaged. If you have pics, I can help more but without, I can only recommend to replace it.

sciontc_mich

^^ yeah since if the caliper was damaged, it might not be sliding correctly on the sliding pins, and you'd only have one caliper up front doing the work while the other (right) was not working. That could definitely cause your problem. Check the sliding pins, if it's stuck, you'll see some scoring on them.

unresolved777

i'll tey and get it removed tomorrow to take a pic, but i wouldnt call it "damaged" cuz its just a scratch. but other than that i didnt see anything "off" my dad even checked it but i talked to him about the Stoptech stage 2 kit. do you'll have any other info on the kit besides what the description says, like type of pads, brand, material wise? cuz he seems interested in that. but i'll try to get a pic tomorrow.

TJKASS

Well so how random are we talking here? because the lack of bite im reffering to usually takes around 2-4 seconds to go away when im driving in the wet, or one pedal reapplication, and this car has always been that way for me.

Did you notice any fluid around the bleeder screw or the banjo bolts on the calipers? And whats your brake fluid level at right now?

unresolved777

random to where it was just under a second to bit the rotor, in wet weather, and now it takes the 3-5sec to bit. it has a little drift to it, but not slidding (like if the tires were slipping, not that) i can be going 60 and when i apply the brake it stays at 60 for the 3-5 secs... i never had that long of a "waiting process" for the pads to bit....
no fluids that i noticed, but there was something, black and sticky, i think it was the tar that they had laid out on my road (at least thats what im hoping) fluid level is 2-5 milimeters under the max level..