Brake cylinder missed during inspection - reason for concern

Chris George · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 8:38 am **Posts:** 15

Should I be concerned and return the car?

Recently bought a Mazda Tribute from Carmax. Car felt fine during normal driving, but noticed that emergency braking was soft, had brakes, but pedal went to the floor and didn't brake very strongly. Brought the car back to carmax asking them to look at the brake system and they found a faulty master brake cylinder. This from a car company that supposedly has a 128 pt inspection or something similar.

Question is, how difficult is a faulty master cylinder to diagnose? Should I be concerned with other aspects of the inspection and/or car if they missed this. For the record, carmax has been responsive to my needs after finding the problem, providing a loaner car and allowing me to dropoff pickup on my schedule and I do like the car (so leaning towards keeping unless new information pursuedes otherwise).

Any advice is welcome
Thanks
-chris

Chuck Frank · **Posted:** Wed Aug 25, 2004 7:34 pm

IMHO A seal can let go at any given moment without any early warning. I assume you didn't notice any brake problems when you first took delivery, if not, they cannot be faulted as their inspection wouldn't have found a seal "about to let go" either. I'd consider yourself lucky it happened so soon after delivery and that they were willing to fix it for you. Many other used car places would likely have said "too bad, so sad, it's your problem once you drove it off the lot".

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Thu Aug 26, 2004 10:45 am

When I've had them let go (I've replaced them on two Integras and one BMW) they've just sort of let go. Nothing I really noticed until right after I bought the thing in the case of the BMW. "Hey, those brakes that felt great last week, now the pedal is sinking."

I dunno. A buddy just bought a truck at Carmax and when we went to test drive it it looked like hell. They adn't detailed it at all - there was a potato chip under the back seat, fingerprints all over the rear windows from the kids that rode in it prior, and on and on. Maybe its luck of the draw with regard to who does the inspections? My Excursion was immaculate...

Wes Eargle · **Joined:** Mon Oct 27, 2003 9:47 am **Posts:** 3683

Karl Shultz wrote:

I dunno. A buddy just bought a truck at Carmax and when we went to test drive it it looked like hell. They adn't detailed it at all - there was a potato chip under the back seat, fingerprints all over the rear windows from the kids that rode in it prior, and on and on. Maybe its luck of the draw with regard to who does the inspections? My Excursion was immaculate...

My Contour was in immaculate condition too, except for the Cheerios that I found under the rear seat when I installed my harness.

THSCC Forums

Brake cylinder missed during inspection - reason for concern

Who is online