I was driving my car today when my brake light came on, I pushed the brake down a little bit and the pedal travel was more than normal, car still stops though. I have NO idea what this means, I only know how to change brake pads/rotors. I dont know much else about brakes. Any and all help is greatly appreciated. =]

 

They probably need to be bled.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/sear...earchid=353649

 

A few notes on brakes:

Unless you have a definite leak in the system that you can determine, you should never add brake fluid to a system. If your fluid level is low, it means you need pads, not fluid. If you add fluid, and the pads need replaced - then when you do replace the pads, the thicker new pads will force more fluid back into the res, and it will spill over causing a mess under your hood.

And never loosen the bleeder valves to change pads - always loosen the top of the res and use a large C clamp to slowly push the piston in on the caliper - this technique means never bleeding on a simple pad change.

I'd check pad wear, disc wear, and is all looks good, then try bleeding as mentioned above. Since you have no idea where the air may be, you'll have to bleed all 4 wheels, starting with the farthest wheel from master cylinder (in order of Pass Rear, Dr Rear, Pass Frt, Dr Frt).

A simple one-man method for bleeding is a small bottle (like a 20 oz coke bottle) - get a 3 foot piece of tubing (surgical or silicone) from hardware store that fits snugly on the bleeder valve nipple - drill a hole in the bottle cap the size of the tubing, insert tube so that the tube is at bottom of bottle. Fill bottle half way with brake fluid, and make sure it sits upright and can't fall over (inside a cinder block hole works well). Attach other end of tubing to bleeder valve, loosen the valve, and pump the brakes - watching carefully the fluid level in res (make sure it doesn't go empty). The tube in the fluid will only allow fluid to re-enter the system (after the first few pumps when the air in the tube is pushed out) - thus releasing the air trapped in the system on each push and "vacuuming" fluid back in the system on each return of the pedal. As long as there is fluid in the bottle, and fluid in the res, and the tube in the bottle is under the fluid level - the air will get worked out, and the system will refill itself with fluid. Make sense?

Good luck!

 

If the brake light is on and you have increased pedal travel (and the fact that it happened while you were driving), chances are you've sprung a leak somewhere. Follow the system from the master cylinder, along the brake lines, down to the calipers/wheel cylinders. You should be able to see any leaking fluid. Since the system is divided into two parts, you'll still have brakes if you have a leak, but only the front or rear brakes. After you've got the leak fixed (and inspected the rest of the brakes) then bleed the system. Camaronewbie did a great job explaining that.

 

yup, sounds like a leak this happened to me.

 

My pads are worn down severly.. I bought the parts today to fix them.. I made a new thread considering I ran into a brick wall. Thank you for the information on how to bleed the brakes, im sure that will come in handy one day when I need to do it.