Weak Brakes

yz2009 · October 10, 2011

Ive got a 04' Sierra Extended Cab. I bought it with 60k miles and now has 100k. Ever since i bought it, it has had really weak brakes. Ive changed then and its made no difference. I did some searching and it seems like GM went back to rear drums in 05, and the 99-04 have poor braking because of the rear disc like mine has.

If i ever need to do a quick stop i can push the petal all the way to the floor and the truck stops nowhere near quick enough. Even if the road is wet i cant get enough braking power to trigger the ABS. I wont even get into how poor the braking is with a trailer on the back. Is there anything i can do to help improve the braking power and stopping distance of my truck? Or is it just a trait of the 99-04's

spock · October 10, 2011

Sounds like mine was. Your rear brakes are probably hardly doing anything. The stock rear rotors are junk. I also had a stuck rear caliper. New rear caliper, Brembo rotors and new pads made a world of difference.

yz2009 · October 11, 2011

Did you change your front rotors?

Are you using stock pads and calipers in the rear?

pm26 · October 11, 2011

I remember that back in 2004 I test drove a new Z71 crew cab truck. The brakes felt weak and it took a lot of pedal force to stop the truck. The brakes on my '06 feel a lot stronger. This is because GM incresed the size of front rotors on '05+ trucks.

Ging back to drum brakes in the rear was a backward step, but the brakes still fell a lot better than those on the '04 truck I drove.

yz2009 · October 12, 2011

Will some good pads help the stopping power?

Also looking into steel lines. I know it will improve the feel a little. Do you think its worth it to get them?

pm26 · October 12, 2011

Will some good pads help the stopping power?

Also looking into steel lines. I know it will improve the feel a little. Do you think its worth it to get them?

What do you mean by "steel lines"? The ones you have on your truck should be steel, with rubber hoses at the calipers.. Did you mean stainless steel braided brake rubber hoses, like many motorcyclists install on their bikes for better brake feel?

yz2009 · October 12, 2011

Will some good pads help the stopping power?

Also looking into steel lines. I know it will improve the feel a little. Do you think its worth it to get them?

What do you mean by "steel lines"? The ones you have on your truck should be steel, with rubber hoses at the calipers.. Did you mean stainless steel braided brake rubber hoses, like many motorcyclists install on their bikes for better brake feel?

ya i meant the braided hoses to the caliper. im just trying to do anything to help the braking in my truck. Im not confident in it at all as far as emergency braking. They are no where as strong as they need to be. Especially when i haul a trailer

Rons05z71 · October 13, 2011

In my experience a set a braided hoses and a good set of pads (like Hawk pads for instance or really a good set of ceramics) should make a huge difference. Also try bleeding the brakes and flush some new fluid through. But if you wanted to with a really good pad will change the way the braking feels. I have changed over my time and if you wanted to go to the autozone or advance just get the more expensive pad, the cheap pads suck and even the medium price ones will change the way the brake pedal feels.

On my 01 Monte I did SS brake lines, Hawk pads and SP performance slotted rotors all in the stock size and it was a world of difference. On the wifes caravan I have done a couple of brake jobs and the first set I went with some medium priced semi-metallics and the pedal was soft and the brakes squeeled, went with some higher priced ceramics and the pedal returned to high and hard and no squeeling.

Rons05z71 · October 13, 2011

oops, forgot to add that on my 05 I just bled the brakes and changed a good portion of the brake fluid and it made my pedal a little harder,which is what I wanted because I felt that they were a little soft. If they made some SS brake lines for these silverado's I would get them, but with rear drums (for mine) I think the only ones you really need is the front.

davebb · October 16, 2011

I have a 6400 GVW 1500 Silverado with a single piston rear caliper. Can I simply change to a 7200 GVW double piston caliper with matching larger rotor and pads. It looks like they will just bolt on, both setups are from the GM parts list. It looks like this will greatly increase the braking capacity of my poorly braking truck, possibly having to change the ABS computer setting

pm26 · October 16, 2011

I have a 6400 GVW 1500 Silverado with a single piston rear caliper. Can I simply change to a 7200 GVW double piston caliper with matching larger rotor and pads. It looks like they will just bolt on, both setups are from the GM parts list. It looks like this will greatly increase the braking capacity of my poorly braking truck, possibly having to change the ABS computer setting

Good question. Perhaps one of GM techs will chime in on this? I do not see any reason why you couldn't use better calipers with larger rotors as long as they clear your wheels and truck structural parts, and the calipers bolt on without any mods.

Wires · October 16, 2011

Ive got a 04' Sierra Extended Cab. I bought it with 60k miles and now has 100k. Ever since i bought it, it has had really weak brakes. Ive changed then and its made no difference. I did some searching and it seems like GM went back to rear drums in 05, and the 99-04 have poor braking because of the rear disc like mine has.

Discs give you better braking than drums. The drum change was due to the truck spitting up rocks/gravel which got wedged in the back rotors/pads. It only took a couple thousand miles on gravel roads to totally destroy the rear rotors. Beauty of disc brakes is they automatically adjust to get optimum braking, and since it's a flat to flat contact patch, they are consistant day in and day out. Drums need to be regularly adjusted or they don't work.

My '00 always had weak braking (disc brakes on all 4 corners), my 08 is 1000x better with discs on all 4 corners. I'm thinking larger calipers might fix you issue). BUT, if you rotors have groves in them, then your braking power will be in the toilet already. My buddy had a newer GMT800 (05 I think) but in HD trim. It had a lot better brakes.

jblakeney · October 16, 2011

I always griped and moaned about my spongy pedal in my 99. Till I put new hoses on it. However, the braking always seem adequate enough for whatever I asked of it.

Give me 4 wheel disc ANY DAY. Give me Front Disc and Rear Drums and make me mad.

Odd thing is when you have drum brakes you usually wear out several sets of front pads before having to mess with the drums. Disc all the way around, the backs always seem to go first......

Stainless Braided hoses, don't swell as rubber hoses do. When you mash the brake pedal the fluid pressure rises quite high, the hoses expand. There went your pedal feel. Now, having stainless steel hoses you mash the pedal its FIRM, period end of story). Just because you have drums in the back doesn't mean that you only have to change the front two hoses...... You have one dangling down to the rear axle. Drum brakes commonly have 3 hoses. Where Disc brakes have 5 hoses.

I noticed my hoses were cracking on the front two hoses several years ago. I purchased 5 new hoses and a quart of brake fluid. Went home changed all 5. Bleed the brakes. I do believe they didn't have all the air out of my system when I purchased the truck. Just in comparison from when I first bought it vs after the new hoses. Night and day difference.

I have stainless braided hoses on a couple vehicles... When I looked I couldn't find hoses with brackets on them and didn't want to fool with removing them from my old hoses and putting them on the new hoses.

Jbo

newdude · October 17, 2011

Ive got a 04' Sierra Extended Cab. I bought it with 60k miles and now has 100k. Ever since i bought it, it has had really weak brakes. Ive changed then and its made no difference. I did some searching and it seems like GM went back to rear drums in 05, and the 99-04 have poor braking because of the rear disc like mine has.

If i ever need to do a quick stop i can push the petal all the way to the floor and the truck stops nowhere near quick enough. Even if the road is wet i cant get enough braking power to trigger the ABS. I wont even get into how poor the braking is with a trailer on the back. Is there anything i can do to help improve the braking power and stopping distance of my truck? Or is it just a trait of the 99-04's

The best thing, in my opinion, would be to tear down the brakes. Remove the calipers off the brackets, take the slide pins out. Clean all the pad mounting points and the sliders, and use a good brake grease and lube the pins and the area where the pad sits on. Do the same with the rears, and make sure that the caliper is not sticking back there especially. If they do, it can cause uneven wear on the pads and short life. As for the switch to drums in 2005, I would love to give my reason why but will hold off on that...

I say all of that because on my GMC 2500hd I ran into this. The pedal never felt "good." It always came up on the soft, mushy side. Took the wheels off and serviced all the sliders and the truck stopped like how a vehicle should brake. The brakes were MUCH more responsive than before and the pedal was just right.