For the longest of time, since I bought my car, the brakes never felt right. The pedal was firm, but was still a bit spongy when comparing them to other people's S's. I tried bleeding the brakes a bunch of times and even switched to SS brake lines but the brakes still felt spongy.

After reading another thread about using the ABS to get the fluid out of the ABS pump, I gave that a try. I did a couple of high speed braking runs to get the ABS to engage a bunch of times, and then bled the brakes again.

To my surprise, I had a giant air bubble come out of the driver side rear caliper. After going through 2 bottles of brake fluid to flush out the system, the brakes feel really good. Pedal feel is very firm. I love it.

 

Nice.

 

Good tip Edwen. So now you're telling me I've to to bleed, put the wheels back on, go for a drive, engage ABS, then re-bleed?

 

wow... very nice.

 

Another option, which I think might work, is turkey baste all the old fluid out of the resorvoir and put in new fluid. Engage the ABS, then go and flush the brakes.

It was fine for me since I had to get snow tires put onto a set of wheels, so I had to take off and put on the wheels twice. =P

 

interesting...i need to try that on my civic...it has had spongy brakes for a very long time

 

Many ABS systems cycle the pump as part of the test of the ABS system. It's a good way to bleed the ABS pump as well (key on and off several times).


Mike

 

I wonder if they do that on the S?

 

I think I have that same issue! MOFO

Wana bleed my brakes for me edwen

 

I believe the ABS check on the S2 happens when a certain speed is reached after startup, but it's not quite the same as what you did. It's always a good idea to engage ABS and rebleed anyway. On BMWs I just activate the DSC through the tester, which makes things a bit easier.