Problem with my braks…

[Sindre]

Hey, I just changed my handbrake wires. After I had done this, my footbrake got soft and didn’t brake as good as i had before… and two days later when I was going to drive home from work. The brakes didn’t work at all… so all I have to brake with is my handbrake… Asked a friend I have that work as a car mechanic about it, but he is German so him talking in Norwegen (Im from norway…) isn’t always so easy to understand…
But I think I understood him saying that I need to bleed my brakes again…? It would make sence… but when I checked the box that holds the fluid, it was all gone…

So my question is, is it possible that all the brake fluid has gone out of the system without a leak, because I failed to do something important when I changed the handbrakewires??? (I did use the brakes even if they were bad, so I felt like pressing out the remaining fluids when I think about it…)

Or do my car have a leak in the system which I need to plugg before I can bleed my braks again??

Have a little crisis because I need to drive the car on a four hour long drive in four days….

Glad for every comment and tip that can help me 🙂 I know a few things about working on a car, but I would call my self a rookie.

Topic

[college man]

changing the hand brake cable has nothing to do
with the hydraulics.If the master cylinder is empty
theres a leak. you will need to do a visual inspection
of all lines and components.

[Roy French]

It is possible you didn’t get your shoes back in the properly. The wheel cylinder may have came off the shoe, causing the piston to pop out. Can you see any leakage anywhere? Look at the backing plates.

[celticbhoy]

Make, model, and year. Does your car have rear drum brakes or is it four disc brakes?

[Sindre]

I thought so as well. but there is something that must have happend during my changing of the handbrake wire. 😛 cuz I know that it has nothing to do with the hydraulics 😛

It’s a VW Passat 1996 stv, it has four disc brakes.

I am positiv there has to be a leak somewhere… I just finished bleeding my brakes an hour ago, and took it for a drive to test it out. The brakes were good, almost better than before :P, but after I used the hand brake aswell (tell more about why after this) then it started to get soft again, not nearly as fast as last time, but softer never the less..

I tried jusing the handbrakes sometimes because when I had my wheel of on the right/rear side of the car I saw the brakefluid leak just a liiiiitle bit. So I took the handbrake of, then it didn’t leak. and when I put it on again, it started to leak again.
I’m not talking about much leaking, it was very little.

Is it something there that can be broken? Do I in that case maybe have to change the whole caliper?

I should say that when I bought the car, the guy I bought it from said that I couldn’t use my handbrake because it would make the brakepads get stuck, and I’d have to manually push them out my self. My dad said that it had to be because of a bad wire. So I changed the wires and now I am here 😛

Thanks so far btw! 😀 happy for all the answers 😀

[college man]

If you see the leak from the e brake caliper.
I would suggest you replace the caliper. 😉

[Sindre]

It’s just that it isn’t directly from the caliper it self…
and I don’t want to change the caliper as that would probobly cost me the same amount which I paid for the car..
I gave just under 1000 dollars for it.. I think it would be around 944 to be more accurate 😛

but thanks anyways 😛 I’m just gonna continue as I did before, with not using the handbrake, because it seems like to use that is the same as opening a realy small valve which drains the brakefluid slowly 😛 so not using it as I did before should give me my brake back 😛

Because I am starting to think that what te last owner told me was bullshit. And the only reason he said it was because he didn’t want to admitt the truth in fear of me not buing the car… 😛

but that’s just great 😛 cus that means I have just wasted about 350 dollars on new cables which I didn’t need at all… :/ that sucks…

Anyways I am, as you might know, new to this site 😀 but I will most likely post more things here with questions that I have in the future! 😀 I have never tryid forum sites. Never thought people really used this sites 😛 but I see know that this is a good resorce for info and help 😀

Thanks again 😛

cya 😛

[twiggy]

I really suggest finding the root cause of your issue rather than avoiding using the e-brake because you don’t know if this is part of a larger problem lurking that will rear it’s ugly head at the worst time, even if you don’t use your e-brake.

[scott37300]

Really hard to read and take a post serious when there are more faces with tongues sticking out then words.

Can you take a picture of your caliper and the leak you can see?

[Author]

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