Need advice on 458 braking issue, or lack there of....

Read this and especially post 30 - you mention the issue as the first major stop - is it possible your brakes simply are not ready ?

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/458-brakes-versus-porsche-turbo-brakes.402767/

There are other similar threads - as you only do a few hundred miles a year you may never have got them fully warm and hence learnt their needs

 

The brakes should always function properly !

Did you bleed the system fully ? Do so … and try again.

 

I assume your brake fluids topped up and no air. A bit of air will make for inconsistent issue but not a car that doesn’t stop at the same rate. May be the brake Booster. Search it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

IMO there are some issues with 458 and 488 brakes that are not being reported and/or aren't consistent. My 488 brakes failed me and I punted the car, every time I tell the story someone send me a message or email or something with a similar story and my guess is they don't want it public since their car would be harder to sell.

 

I think this is a software glitch. I had a problem with the brake pedal getting rock hard when starting the car. Car did not recognize my foot pressure, so it wouldn’t allow me to shift out of P into a reverse or 1st gear.

The problem was becoming a little more frequent and so the service center was able to reproduce it. They replace the brake pedal sensor and did something to the software/ ECU

Hasn’t been a problem since

I did experience poor braking behavior which was a bit scary. It was a cold foggy morning and the brakes were pretty cold. I was going about freeway speed.

Didn’t happen again. I guess it was a software glitch. I remember reading that the system normally does some pre-warming of the rotor depending on speed and gear changes. I suppose that this pre heats the carbon ceramic rotors to help
drivers who aren’t used to applying enough pressure needed to use the Carbon Ceramic system optimally.

Maybe that pre heating action was not working momentarily.

 

Did you ever solve this problem? I lost my brakes on my Spider. Pedal went rock solid. Car would not slow. Crash occurred with awful result. Brake booster failure. Seems to happen a lot.

 

That is terrible Hopefully no injuries

 

Same thing happened to me in my 458 Spider ... this was the result https://www.bathchronicle.co.uk/news/bath-news/ferrari-worth-200000-crashes-garden-1021566

Ferrari deny and deny it ... BUT they know the truth , I actually think myself lucky some poor guy I spoke to had the same problem but killed someone in Hong Kong .. he served 2 years in prison for it .. yet he is adamant the brakes failed and he could not stop the car .. I 100% believe him after it happened to me.

 

From internet knowledge (which may not be worth much) my understanding is that 458 (or 488) could occasionnally be subject to booster failure - in which case the surprise of having no braking assistance results in dramatically decreased braking power (with potentially very bad consequences), although in theory it would still be possible to get appropriate braking.

 

Who makes the brake booster?
I don’t think Ferrari makes it. Nor do they make the rotors or calipers or master cylinder.

I think that when one loses the vacuum assist, the pedal becomes very stiff like an F1 car.

the brake is not absent. It just takes much greater pedal pressure. This catches the driver by surprise and most do not understand that what he needs to do is use extreme force on the pedal. The car will slow.
rubber vacuum lines run near the exhaust system. I wonder if the heat from the exhaust system might contribute to the failure of the vacuum lines.

I always drive in race Mode which keep open the exhaust valves which not only makes the engine music louder, but may also keep the exhaust system a bit cooler too. I wonder if the temperature effect has any ramifications when it comes to the rubber vacuum hoses which run adjacent to the exhaust?

just my unprofessional musings!

feel free to chime in

sorry for the typos I use my iPhone and it
Is a real POS to work with

 

Bosch make the Booster......I believe you have grasped more about what the problem is than the manufacturer has, or wants to admit. The recall of the 30,000 cars did not focus on failure of the brake booster, but if one reads many of the brake failure stories, it is almost always this component that has malfunctioned. I have done a lot of work on this, after crashing my own 458 and the people I hired believe that, at times, the seal allows some fluid to contaminate the booster valve and stop it functioning. It happens suddenly, under certain circumstances and as you state, when a driver only gets 1/6 of the braking force they expected, it feels like a total brake failure, as human reaction time is often not fast enough to suddenly press the brake pedal with 5 times more force to make up for the loss of the multiplier.

 

The brake booster is a 6 times force multiplier. In normal cases, press with 20 kg on the pedal and get 120kg of force at the calipers. If it fails, the ratio becomes 1 to 1 and so a driver would have to press the pedal, unexpectedly, with 120kg of force to recreate the same stopping power.

 

100% !!!

 

no

 

Prior to starting the car there is no vacuum assist so a sinking pedal is normal
Have you had the brake fluid reservoir cap recall completed on your car?

 

Class Action Law Suit to Ferrari on this brake problem
https://burgerlaw.com/ferrari-brake-failure-lawsuit/

 

Bottom-feeding class action lawyer *********
To the uninitiated, seems legit but don’t be fooled
Sorry