Clio 200 - brakes working poorly

[AndyBMX]

Hi All,

Hoping for some guidance with an issue I'm having on my 200.

I've owned the car since October and over the last few months I've noticed that my brakes are getting progressively worse. When braking there is a fair bit of travel in the pedal and no real bite, and if I come off the brakes and press them down again straight away, they work better but again there is no real bite as there should be. I basically have to double pump the brakes every time I slow down.

I initially thought this would be air in the system but I've had the brakes bled and apparently there was no air in the system. Does anyone have any ideas on what to check first? I thought about having the calipers rebuilt to see if there was any issues with the pistons etc, but thought I'd see if anyone has any other suggestions before I do that. The fronts disks/pads were replaced at the end of 2017 and the rears were done mid 2018.

Thanks in advance.

 

[iMZee]

Check your brake fluid level, mine happened to be on min and felt a bit like you are describing yours to be. However, i topped it off to the max level and now the pedal is a lot firmer and bites as it should. Also depends on if the car was run on a budget by a previous owner, you could have some unknown brand brake pads on the car?

 

[AndyBMX]

Check your brake fluid level, mine happened to be on min and felt a bit like you are describing yours to be. However, i topped it off to the max level and now the pedal is a lot firmer and bites as it should. Also depends on if the car was run on a budget by a previous owner, you could have some unknown brand brake pads on the car?

The fluid level was fine before I had the brakes bled, but I will double check it tonight. I would hope that it's at the correct level, as the mechanic said he ran a fair bit of fluid through to check for any air. I will also check the pads but I wouldn't imagine they're budget as the previous owner spent a small fortune keeping the car right.

 

[Chrisgti6]

The inside pad is probably seized in the front calipers.

Common issue on 197's and 200's

 

[DrAlex]

Does the pedal slowly sink if you hold it? (with the engine on).

 

[JB21]

First off with the ignition on 1 without the engine started pump the pedal until rock hard and leave your foot on it to see if it travels down slightly if it stays solid, then start the car with your foot on the pedal and it should now go down as normal, this rules out a leak in the MC or lines. Next pull the callipers apart, and clean and grease everything up and reassemble replacing the guide pins presuming your running Brembo's and see how that feels. If still not right get yourself a 5L of fluid from ECP (Pagid DOT4 is cheap and decent fluid giving a nice firm pedal compared to others fluids) and just keep bleeding the system. You may have a bit of air in the ABS pump, so go out before bleeding and fire the ABS around 5 times to shift the air in the pump down the lines and bleed, if it feels better but not perfect rinse and repeat until solid.

 

[AndyBMX]

The inside pad is probably seized in the front calipers.

Common issue on 197's and 200's

Does the pedal slowly sink if you hold it? (with the engine on).

First off with the ignition on 1 without the engine started pump the pedal until rock hard and leave your foot on it to see if it travels down slightly if it stays solid, then start the car with your foot on the pedal and it should now go down as normal, this rules out a leak in the MC or lines. Next pull the callipers apart, and clean and grease everything up and reassemble replacing the guide pins presuming your running Brembo's and see how that feels. If still not right get yourself a 5L of fluid from ECP (Pagid DOT4 is cheap and decent fluid giving a nice firm pedal compared to others fluids) and just keep bleeding the system. You may have a bit of air in the ABS pump, so go out before bleeding and fire the ABS around 5 times to shift the air in the pump down the lines and bleed, if it feels better but not perfect rinse and repeat until solid.

I did the above test and the pedal stayed firm with the engine off, and then sank down as usual once the engine was started. So the MC and lines are fine I believe.

Just a quick update on this - on Saturday I took the old pads out, gave the calipers a good clean and stuck some new pads in (Brembos), and the brakes feel a whole lot better! The pistons were perfectly free, nice and easy to push back in, so I think the seals in the calipers are fine.
I'm still not sure if the brakes are perfect (maybe I'm expecting too much?), but they feel much better and I no longer have to double pump them to get any form of bite. Hopefully once the pads bed in a bit there will be a little bit more of a bite, but for now I'm happy.

The existing Brembo pads that were on there were only about 40% worn so I'm not sure what the real issue was, possibly contaminated?

 

[JB21]

IME OE Brembo pads aren't the best and compress quite easily. I'd bleed the system as I mentioned above if still spongy.

 

[AndyBMX]

IME OE Brembo pads aren't the best and compress quite easily. I'd bleed the system as I mentioned above if still spongy.

I did read that the OE Brembos aren't amazing, but I thought for the sake of £30 it was worth putting some in to see whether it was the old pads causing the issue. I did actually have the system bled a few weeks back and the guy said he ran quite a lot of fluid through the system and there was no air in there whatsoever. I may well give them another bleed soon if I'm still not happy with the feel.

 

[JB21]

I did read that the OE Brembos aren't amazing, but I thought for the sake of £30 it was worth putting some in to see whether it was the old pads causing the issue. I did actually have the system bled a few weeks back and the guy said he ran quite a lot of fluid through the system and there was no air in there whatsoever. I may well give them another bleed soon if I'm still not happy with the feel.

Air could be in the pump, fire your ABS on a dirt track or wet road a few times and try it then if your still not happy.

 

[R3k1355]

Is there any special method to bleeding the ABS pumps like activating them via software?

 

[JB21]

Through CLIP yeah...

 

[JamesBryan]

Clip or an RSTuner will do it if you have the ABS module which is like £30, can use on as many cars as you like too (no license needed).