soft brakes? new Trailblazer owner

[rollinhard]

Hi. New trailblazer owner, 2003 4x4, I love it..

anyway, I've got a question about the brakes.. they feel "soft" like they aren't stop-on-a-dime tight, or anything like that, but they slide to slow me down instead of feeling like "brakes" and stopping, I can feel the rotor slowly tighten on the pad.. is that normal? is it because I'm driving a huge SUV? Sorry I'm new to the whole BIG truck thing, I was a s10 owner for a long time..

any help is appreciated.. oh, it's a 03 with 41k miles, so it shouldn't have bad pads and rotors yet, I'm hoping anyway..

[bmm354]

My suggestion would be to drive another Trailblazer or Envoy and compare. Everybody interprets things differently and what might be a firm pedal to someone might feel like stepping on a balloon to someone else who's accustomed to a sports car brake pedal.

That being said, I'd say that the pedal on my Envoy is definitely not stop-on-a-dime tight. The brakes are fine--I keep a close eye on the pads and the dealer also inspected them not long ago and all is well. I chalk it up to this being a 4500+ lbs vehicle that's not exactly designed for Corvette-like braking (SS excluded :) ). I will say that the Envoy's brake feel is far better than the '93 S10 Blazer I had before. Those brakes always bugged me.

[lars02Voy]

maybe they are glazed over. Heat the linnigs up a bit by doing a few moderate decel stops from 50-0. DO NOT GET THEM TOO HOT. They get more effective at higher temps. Drive a half mile or so between stops. Do this about 25 times. After they get burnished, they shouldn't feel as bad. I personally think the pedal feel on the GMT360 SUCKS!

I've upgraded to Ceramic pads and I think I'm going to change out the M/C and Booster for a different size/design. Probably a 9+9 dual rate booster and a 1" M/C. That should perk up the brakes a bit. The Current Delphi single rate just doesn't have the bite at the higher pedal efforts and decels to give you sufficient braking confidence.

Just my :m2:

Eric

[ghoster]

I drove 4 different ones when I was test driving them. The breaks all felt the same. That said, the TB brakes feel different than any other vehicle I have owned. They feel.....soft. I guess thats how I would describe them. I can say they work fine though. I have pushed hard enough to feel the anti-lock on many occassions, they will stop the truck quickly when needed.:cool:

[tahawus84]

I know what you mean and its normal. Both the trailblazers I have are the same way but I have an older 95 tahoe and the pedel gets rock hard. It took me a while to get used to the feeling of the pedel.

[goes211]

Trailvoys also have a power brake booster. It's behind the master cylinder and provides assistance to the brakes. This requires manifold vacuum. Could be a leak.

[goes211]

Your discs could also be "glazed". Inspect them and if so, you can rough them up with sandpaper by using a tight swirling pattern and sanding around the whole disc. I belive your problem is that you might have to get used to you new vehicle's stopping ability.

[EL MATADOR]

I picked up an '06 last week. Breaks feel very soft... almost discomforting how soft they are. I havent needed to stop the vehicle quickly yet so I cant form an opinion on how they perform, only how the feel.


This is the 5th vehicle I've ever purchased new and driven litterally 100+. The brakes feel like they have 60,000 miles on them.. super "spongey".

I dont like them... at all.

[Envoy Fan]

I picked up an '06 last week. Breaks feel very soft... almost discomforting how soft they are. I havent needed to stop the vehicle quickly yet so I cant form an opinion on how they perform, only how the feel.


This is the 5th vehicle I've ever purchased new and driven litterally 100+. The brakes feel like they have 60,000 miles on them.. super "spongey".

I dont like them... at all.

They will get better with time. If not, get dealership to bleed them.

[dstraka22]

I have an 05 EXT. I too have noticed that the brakes were soft. I complained when i had it in for service and of course they said nothing was wrong. Then the next time when i had it in i complained even more. this time i was feeling some slight friction in the pedal movement at the top of the pedal. They found a service bulletin they had a procedure for bleeding out all of the brakes and replacing the fluid with another type. This did help the softness but not the friction. they were told by chevy to pull out the master cylinder and the booster and find out where the problem was. it ended up to be a bad master cylinder. I still think the brakes cannot be compared to any other vehicle, they said that the trailblazer does have a "smoother and softer" feeling brake movement! ahahah, but since the work being done the brakes are alot firmer and stop very well.

[lacer_2005]

I went from a car to an SUV and they are defintely different...mine don't feel soft though. I even discovered yesterday that I can stop from 70 pretty quick...gave the people in my way a heart attack at the same time ya know but :rotfl: