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  1. Gino Veltri

    Gino Veltri Member

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    My barking brakes are getting so bad. They are audible to all other drivers even at busy intersections, my actuator/accumulator pump runs ever 15 seconds despite not touching the brake pedal at all; i have noticed that if i don’t press the brake pedal down past a certain halfway point , i don’t get the awful barking noise. My question is at this point is there anything i can do to help even a little or is my actuator/accumulator just bound for death sooner rather than later? can a standard brake bleed alleviate things (it sounds like air bubbles are in the brake system)? i can’t work techstream so old school brake bleeding is all i got.
    …additionally the abs ! and vsc lights are on pretty much all the time now (no red brake light tho). i’ll try to attach a video
     
  2. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    Any constant beeping when you're breaking like the thing beeping at you the whole time you're going down the road until something happens and it's not the accumulator coming to pressures what's happening.? Yeah it's time for an actuator there's no way around that or you just keep driving I drove for a year almost like this with the brakes of an old '60s Dodge truck with no booster and four-wheel drums lol car drove fine gas mileage was good breaking was terrible breaking is the least of my issues.
     
  3. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    Iirc, changing the fluid can sometimes help, but it’s no guarantee
     
  4. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    The usual way "air" bubbles get into a brake system is from somebody opening it up and doing work. If nobody has been doing that, then the bubbles you're hearing are probably nitrogen bubbles, escaped from a leaky accumulator. That causes all the same mischief as unbled air in a brake system, plus also causing the pump to run more often because of the loss of nitrogen from the accumulator (the same way the well pump runs more often in a house with a water well, if there's too little air in the house's pressure tank).

    Going through the full bleed procedure will get the bubbles out and probably make your brakes quieter and safer for a time, but will not stop the problem coming back and the pump runs getting more and more frequent. Sooner or later you gotta replace that thing.

    Regrettably, there is no old school brake bleeding of a gen 2. There are passages in the actuator closed off by valves that have to be opened to get all the air out; the bleed procedure using the ECU is what does that.

    If you have trouble getting Techstream to work, there are other scan tools able to trigger the brake bleed procedures. There is a thread reviewing some choices; some strong recommendations emerged if you join it about here.

    The "why worry? it'll just always brake like an old truck without power assist" line is an ok description of the way the system's fail-safe mode is designed to work—but there's a big unless involved, when you have enough unbled bubbles in the system.

    With enough bubbles in there, if it goes into fail-safe it's going to stop just like an old truck with unbled brakes—meaning it keeps going.

    So if it is barking like there are big bubbles in there, and you're not going to replace it right away, then definitely I would at least bleed the system ASAP, using Techstream or another scan tool that can do that.
     
  5. Gino Veltri

    Gino Veltri Member

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    I find this hard to belive as Ive experienced myself when it goes out, theres a loud continuous beeeeeep and there are zero brakes whatsoever. (the e brake still works a little) but this is how my brakes were on a 2005 i had to get to the shop at 3 am specifically because i couldnt stop it for red lights (they charged 1000$ for the accumulator/actuator, and it still went out again 3 years later causing a crash and total loss). The barking is outragously loud and frequent and continuous now with even slight depression of the pedal. I put a pedal depresser on the brake and tried to get under it (turns out its easier to. access under the hood) to see where the barking comes from as its a different location than the whirring buzz of the pump... so

    If im thinking of replacing the thing myself, what kind of obstacles am i up against. Obviously ive got to get a method for properly bleeding. But also those 5 metal lines that seem cut off on all used parts ive seen, how do i re attach those those? will i need to break out the welder or brazing rods?
     
  6. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    Know when we had our loud continuous beep we had breaks I don't know about any barking never heard that and I have four of these things and three of them have had break actuators right here on the property replaced You don't do anything with the five lines if they cut them off at the factory or at the junkyard no matter you're just going to undo those lines that they cut off and throw them in the trash and you're going to unscrew yours in your car because you're not going to cut them because you want to use your car again they cut them at the junkyard so all the fluid stays in is the thinking. We've never had any barking we've had some funny business where the front brakes don't seem to be working in the backs do all the work when the thing is beeping like crazy and all that but it feels more like a Dodge truck without a brake booster on the firewall in four-wheel drum brakes If you know what that's about that'd be like 1964 you know I don't know we've never not had breaks and boy have we tried let me tell you I drove around with a broken actuator for about a year I'm very uneventful beeping all the time sometimes the beep would go away because the pressure would come up he'd be driving down the road smoking a cigarette and the beep would just come back on and you hadn't touch the brakes in 5 minutes and it would be the whole way oh well so this is interesting You replaced the brake actuator and 3 years later you're doing it again We haven't seen that either we've got a couple that are two two and a half years in so I guess we'll be looking to see what happens there I think the cars will hit 600k and maybe they'll be ready to retire I don't know