Hey fellas. So I’m trying to help my Grampa with a brake issue on his 2015 Toyota Venza AWD car. 25k miles. No accidents. It does sit a bit because he’s 92 years old so he doesn’t drive much. I’m going to start from the past and move to present. Back in December I had to take the vehicle out of storage which every year I do the same thing. I either pull the battery or I pull the negative terminal and start the vehicle 2 times a month and let it run for a bit. Yes the car does do some sitting still. I pulled it out immediately my Grampa said the brakes didn’t feel right to him. So I took it for a good drive and the brake pedal kept falling to the floor. No ABS LIGHT NOTHING ON THE DASH. My cousin has a fairly high end scanner and no codes came up I checked the reservoir and it was full and clean. I BORROWED TIME on my buddies rack to look for any leaks in the lines. I looked at the brake booster and master cylinder and didn’t see any thing running down. I pulled every tire and inspected all the brakes. Even though they are going to need brakes on their car soon they still have sometime on them to wait till it gets warmer here as I don’t have a garage to work out of. But that still has nothing to do with the problem. I’ve done too many brake jobs to know this is nothing to do with pads on the lower side. So I bled the brakes manually because it states you can through a code by having the ignition or the car running while doing it. I did get some air to come out the calipers. The brakes stiffened up. Grampa calls me a couple days later pedals back to the floor. I was always taught a spongy pedal means bad master cylinder and a brick hard pedal means bad brake booster. I was going to do the master cylinder but my Grampa was told that if I did it the car would need to be coded or through some codes that would turn into the car having to go back to the dealership anyways. So the car went to the dealership and they “got it to through a code” which was the brake booster. Puzzling to me since that the first time I’ve ever had a brake pedal go to the floor and it’s a brake booster. But that’s what there tech said. The car sat at the dealership from the second week of January till the end of February waiting on a brake booster to come from over seas. Grampa gets car back. Car is not driven daily. He calls me recently says the pedal is going to the floor again. I go look at it again and drive it. This time I’m just putting it in drive with my foot on the brake which is to the floor and I got the traction control light buzzzing and flashing BUT we are not moving. Meaning the car is slowly pulling what ever brake pressure is there at idol and you can hear the car ever so slightly creeping foward. The traction control light comes on then it locks the brakes momentarily and then the car will start to move under its own power with the pedal fully to the floor. NO THERE Is NOTHING UNDER THE Brake PEDAL from stopping the travel of it. Also in the beginning I would have to pump the brakes to get the car to have some sort of brake pressure to stop. And also. On initial start up when I put my foot on the brake pedal and it’s at the floor like half of the fluid reservoir gets sucked into the system and soon as I let off the pedal it shoots the same amount out back into the reservoir. There is no fluid lost whatsoever. I have a video from the tech that looked at it today. I dont know how to post videos. I really would like your guys opinion. Just replacing the booster was 1800$ and I’ve given this dealership well over 200k worth of business over the course of just a FEW years. And now I’m pissed with myself because I should have requested them given me the booster they pulled off which was 959$ back to me to inspect and make sure it was even replaced.
Kind of wierd that you were able to get ait out of a sealed system. What is the pedal like if you pump the brakes with the car off to use all the vaccum? Is it a hard pedal. Consistent height?
Can someone help me post the videos. Sorry for all the grammatical errors. Everyone’s opinion is very much appreciated right now. My Grampa was or is getting screwed. This is getting to a 3400$ job. I refuse to have them touch the brakes. I’ll do them. I about lost my **** today with their top technician.
I'd have put a master cyl. on from the beginning & I think been done w/it but maybe I'm missing something here.
Sounds like an internal leak in the master to me. Also, sounds like you need to escalate with the dealer management. Patrick
You can try this,clamp off the 2 front brake hoses and see how the pedal feels. Then do the same to the rears. If pedal would get better on either you can tell if it's a caliper problem. But it does sound like a master issue.
With no fluid being lost, in a conventional system, I'd say it was master cylinder gone bad. However, with ABS, I'm never really sure anymore. Those ABS modules now do everything from fake-posi, traction control and vehicle stability. You'd think a defective ABS/VSS/TC would throw a nice, easy-to-find code. Have you hit any Venza forums to see if this is something others have encountered? I've used the Ridgeline forum to figure out stuff on my Dad's truck.
I’ve been on different forums, YouTube, googling. I mean this should not be that difficult of an issue until you bring in the abs/TC/ and I guess the wheel sensors can throw off the brakes. But usually a light will come on for the abs, or at least through a code. And even if the scanner that I was able to use wasn’t finding it. I know Toyota’s dealership has the ability with the computers and scanners they have. They got the brake booster to fault out and said that was the problem by testing. I never got to see the inside to see if there was brake fluid in it. Which I wouldn’t expect anyways since I never had to add fluid during any of the tests I did and the same amount of fluid the system would suck in would shoot back into the reservoir. Ohhhh am I kicking my self in the butt for not requesting the old brake booster back.
If I do that sequence of pinching the rears first and then pinching the fronts next and find that a one caliper is not working correctly could that really make the the car hav no brakes at all? I thought both lines coming out the master were one for the rear and one for the front. I would have thought there would be still some sort of brakes there. But there’s NONE
The only time I’ve ever seen this is if the calipers are hung on the wrong side. I know that can give you a soft/squishy pedal. These have not.
I have found that if you go and post a detailed negative review of the dealership on Yelp, of how they took advantage of your Granps, overcharged him, and left his with a car that has no brakes, the dealership will be HIGHLY motivated to make you happy. Sounds like the master to me also. Also, with regard to video, post it on Youtube, and then link to it here.
An internal ABS/TSC/ESP leak can be diagnosed with a trained tech and proper diagnostic tool. No it won't set a DTC for internal leakage unless it occurs during one of said activations. In this case your failure is a slow internal brake leak that forces brake pedal to the floor. This could be master cylinder or ABS unit. Either need a proper diag tool to diag and properly program after replacement. I suggest finding a reputable dealer, that stand behind there work. Good luck!
Thank you fellas for all the help and input I will be doing everything that you all suggested. I appreciate it much!!!
I'm not thinking it's a abs problem. Sounds more like you're loosing hydraulic lockup. When you push on the pedal with all the wheels in the air do the brakes lock or drag the same? I've seen calipers that the square seal rolls and doesn't let the piston go back out to maintain close clearance to the rotor. With the pistons back too far you need more pedal travel to get lockup. Or the residual valve in the master cylinder is stuck open which would cause the same thing.
As of right now. They are doing the front passenger caliper. They pinched the lines and that is the only thing the dealership could come up with for an explanation of why there is no pedal. When pinched the pedal gets hard. In my experience a caliper is usually leaking or seized but I still don’t understand why one caliper would loose the entire brakes. He’s paying for just parts which there getting us a little on for only front rotors and pads. The caliper the dealership is paying for as well as all the labor. I talked to the service manager and said if this doesn’t fix it I want reimbursement for the booster replacement and anything foward from here is all out of there pocket.
QUOTE="dan zepnick, post: 3481375, member: 17889"]I'm not thinking it's a abs problem. Sounds more like you're loosing hydraulic lockup. When you push on the pedal with all the wheels in the air do the brakes lock or drag the same? I've seen calipers that the square seal rolls and doesn't let the piston go back out to maintain close clearance to the rotor. With the pistons back too far you need more pedal travel to get lockup. Or the residual valve in the master cylinder is stuck open which would cause the same thing.[/QUOTE] They were able to show me at on the rack and duplicate the issue. I’m just not understanding what a seal in a caliper or what could happen in 1 caliper that would cause all brakes to not engage. No brake pedal. The master cylinder was checked 2x. I with you on thinking it would have to be a master cylinder issue. But I guess right now I’m in so deep with it that I put it on them at this point. If we have no brakes after this again. I will be reimbursed for the booster, and everything after this point is all on them as far as parts and labor It kinda helps that my son will be on fox 6 may 14 at 7am-8pm on repeat speaking about competitive archery and how he gets from place to place and how it’s impacted his life. So it would be a great opportunity for him to say how he gets to his competitions
