I have a 2002 Toyota Camry. Recently the ABS and Brake lights, both came on. My Mechanic changed the ABS brake pump module and now the light is off. Great. But…when I was paying I asked the tech who did the work if he bled the system of air and he replied that these cars “self-bleed…”
I paid, left, and drove the car around town and quickly realized that the brake pedal needed to be depressed nearly down all the way to stop the car. This was new, so I returned to the shop, where I spoke to the owner of the shop who said that I should drive around for a couple of days and if didn’t improve THEY WOULD BLEED THE SYSTEM AGAIN. I received two completley different opinion from the owner and from the tech who did the work. So, My question is, does my car with ABS require a system bleed when this type of work is done…? Please help:)
Yes.
Any time the hydraulics are “broken into” for any repair, bleeding is necessary. Even if the component replaced is bench-bled. Your experience with the pedal going to the floor proved that your car needs bleeding too.
Try a test. When the pedal sinks, try pumping it. That should firm up the pedal as the entrapped air gets compressed. It doesn’t fix the problem, it just confirms that bleeding is needed.
Thanks for the message. You’ve confirmed what I suspected. When I pump the brakes the pedal does begin to offer more resistance. I’ll call him tomorrow:)
When you have him bleed the brakes, tell him you want him to use a diaphragm brake bleeder and the appropriate brake adapter . . . power probe makes the correct adapters, for example
Don’t settle for him bleeding the brakes using the 2-man method, where one guy pumps the pedal, and another guy cracks open a bleeder valve
I’m not aware of any car that has a brake design that “self bleeds” itself. Anybody here know, are there any? Perhaps some of the ABS systems can self bleed the ABS module, but if so, that’s news to me. My understanding is that the ABS bleeding procedure often requires a scan tool to operate the various valves during a manual bleeding operation. In any event, if the brake pedal goes nearly all the way to the floor in order to stop the car, a response when you complain of “if it didn’t improve in a couple of days, then come back” isn’t very helpful, and is in fact quite unsafe both for you and other drivers. We aren’t hearing both sides of the conversation of course, but if your portrayal is accurate, suggest to write off what you’ve paid as a learning experience, find another shop, and not use this shop again. From my own diy’er experience, if the brake pedal isn’t correct after brake work is done, and pumping it a few times doesn’t make it correct and stay that way indefinitely, then it never self-corrects.
I was looking up some information for a 2016 Ford, to cite one example . . . and they were extremely specific. They said to use a diaphragm brake bleeder and the appropriate adapter. They didn’t mention any names, but they said that adapters were available from several manufacturers.
I think as time goes by, you’ll find less and less factory service manuals which say to use the 2-man method