Lexus SC400 squishy brakes

I have a 1995 Lexus SC400 with about 220k miles. I have had the car for almost six years and 30k of those miles. It was originally sold in Florida so it has no traction control. It does have ABS brakes. The parking brake system is a drum inside the rotor hat. The car has a pair of four piston front calipers and bigger rotors from a 1996 LS400.

Recently the rear wheels were caked in brake dust after relatively little driving. When I filled the gas tank I calculated 6.5mpg. Yes, six point five miles per gallon.

I figured something was wrong with the rear brakes. The pedal felt fine. I jacked the rear end up and put the transmission in neutral and tried to spin the back wheels. One was totally frozen and the other was quite difficult to move.

So I opened the bleeder valve on one caliper and tried to push the piston in by hand. No dice. I used a c-clamp and it took a lot of effort. The other side was not as bad, but not good either.

So I ordered two reman calipers and two new rear brake hoses. I put that stuff on and gravity bled the new calipers, but no matter how much I pedal bled it (all four corners) the pedal was mushy. My neighbor the ASE certified mechanic thought the master cylinder may have been killed from the effort of bleeding. I have heard this before so I ordered a new master cylinder. It had the wrong bolt pattern so I ordered another one.

This MC fits but after bench bleeding the MC and gravity bleeding all four corners for over an hour (topping off fluid every 5 minutes) and pedal bleeding the pedal still felt bad. I drove it a couple times and then the car sat for a couple of days. I drove it again yesterday and the pedal feels even worse.

I am going to try pedal bleeding all four corners again when my wife gets home. Any other ideas?

Isn't this one of the cars where you have to make sure the parking brake is adjusted correctly to have the right pedal feel?

Might be worth checking out. Otherwise, go over all your lines and your front calipers to make sure everything is all good.

After you try bleeding again, that is.

Hmm. My wife's LS400 had a squishy brake pedal feel for the longest time. I finally solved it by flushing and bleeding the fluid again. It wasn't horribly squishy, but would go most of the way to the floor in a hard stop which isn't right in these cars. How are you pedal bleeding it? Gravity bleeding doesn't seem to work too well with the ABS, in my experience. You may have gotten air bubbles in your ABS module which would require lots of pedal bleeding or else a proper ABS bleed which involves activating the abs module - using a tool that pretty much only dealers have. Is there a friendly local toyota / Lexus dealer you could talk into bleeding your brakes for you, with an ABS activation?

cycle the key on and off while bleeding the breaks... puish down hold open bleeder close bleed. release peddle. turn key on wait 5 seconds. turn off. repeat over and over.

I cleaned the area around the master cylinder a couple of days ago.

My wife and I just bled all four corners. When topping off the fluid I noticed there was fluid bleeding down the brake booster.

Master cylinder bad out of the box.

That would do it! Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

I will reinforce with others have said that with ABS power beading can be better

Ugh. No one stocks the master cylinder in town. The only place I can get a NEW master cylinder is from Lexus and they have to special order it. I am going to try a reman one more time and then I will spend the extra money ($100 reman vs. $340 OEM Lexus) for a new master cylinder.

When you say power bleed do you mean I should use a vacuum bleeder or one of those garden sprayer contraptions?

I got another reman master cylinder from Rockauto. I put it in and my wife helped me pedal bleed the system. It feels much better now.

Awesome! I'm glad it worked out.