Brakes feel weird after service

You say they feel lighter? How so. Do they need more pressure for the car to stop?

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Bring it back to the dealership and tell the service manager. They will make it right.

If they try to dissuade you, test drive a similar car. If the brakes feel different, make the service manager drive the 2 cars and explain why yours is different now.

 

Same exact thing happened to me. Please let us know what you find out!

P.S. Did your service include a brake flush? Mine did not which is what makes it hard to explain why brakes were affected.

 

Did they change pads?

 

Indeed. Just ruling out everything.

Wonder if they cleaned the brakes with something. Sounds like they need a bedding in - your description fits new pads or new rotors. If you can, take the car to some roads with little traffic and give them a good bedding in. Get them properly glowing red hot. That will burn off any possible contaminants or the like and should get them back to normal. It might be a case of them bleeding the brakes and getting a bit of fluid on the rotors.

If your rotors were worn out. you'd know. It would make a scouring noise and it would be fairly easy to see as the surface of the rotor would be completely matte and pitted - would also feel it in the steering wheel. If it is completely glass smooth, it is fine. Depending on how you drive your car, your OE rotors can last anywhere from 20-60000 km, and there are probably people whom have gotten even more. But that being said, while you may not track your car, if you do drive it well and spirited, then above 20000 km is a good number. If you track a Hector like a Cali T, then you could wear a rotor down in 5000 km with little effort.

you can easily check the pad wear. Just poke a finger in there from the inside of the caliper and get a feel for the amount of pad material. A new pad has 10mm of pad material, and it is shot around 3-3.5mm. Of course a worn pad will trip the pad wear indicator, so it's highly unlikely that this is the cause. But it never hurts to make sure.

But like suggested, try a good bedding in, they need to be properly hot. You won't be in doubt, as they will smell quite a bit.

 

Changing brake fluid every other year is part of the scheduled maintenance. Are you sure that this wasn't done? It sounds to me like you have air in the brake system.

 

^^^ My initial thought, too. ^^^

 

If it was air, he should be able to pump them up. Tk me it sounds different.
XSpeed am I understanding you right with the following. The brake pedal feels firm but needs more pressure for the car to stop? If it was air, it should be possible to pump it and then it would stop normally. It wouldn't be the first time if the tech had slathered some brake fluid onto the rotors or pads. This sometimes happens when they rush.

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I had the dealer install steel-braid flex lines ( from Formula Dynamics). Afterward the brakes felt spongy and inconsistent. The service manager said the brakes were difficult to bleed and since they would still stop the car quickly,I should drive 1000-1500 miles and come back for another bleed. Using the brakes tends to move any air to the calipers where it is easier to bleed out. That second bleed took care of the problem and now the brakes are what I had expected.

 

check to see if they did the brake flush on the system during the service, your pads should be fine unless you are EXTREMELY HARD on the brakes they should last about 100k miles with the carbon-ceramic rotors. I have never seen a set of the pads be any less than 8-9mm (aprox 10mm new) on a Cali T unless the car was tracked. can also have the dealer pull the CCM wear (rotor wear) on the car for you. it will come back as a % worn number.

 

I'd love to see you get 100k on pads lol. If you run them extremely hard as you say, they last 600-700km. Most I see wesr pads in between 5000-10000 km. Not even rotors will last that long, even if all you do is drive the car to and from the beauty parlour in granny mode.

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@XSpeed did you ever figure it out?

 

Never any differences between day to day for me, but have noticed differences between cars.

Like I mentioned, I think bedding in can make a significant difference. Usually when the cars have had less than optimal stopping power, it has been due to poor bedding in. If the pedal is firm but the brakes don't grab, it's usually because of a lack of friction. Like I touched upon earlier, you need to get them properly hot for a real bedding in. If you can't smell the brakes, you're not even close to proper bed in temps. They need to be glowing red hot to properly gas out and do a transfer of material. 5-7 stops from 180-200 to around 80 almost getting on the ABS in rapid succession where you floor it between stops to quickly get back up to speed will do the trick. Then let them cool for a few minutes humming along, and then a few easy stops.

Unless you have a rolling road with brake testing abilities, you cannot measure anything yourself. Not much else to do than sense how they feel. Of course if you have a G meter, you can see if they improve in terms of how fast they slow the car down.