Kris, Jeremy, Andrew and I did some recce on North Mountain and South Mountain last night and, on the way home, I decided to test my brakes just to see how absolutely crappy they are. The pads and calipers seem adequate however the car desperately needs a bleed and new brake fluid. On the street and highway a hard brake stops the car quite quickly but, afterwards, there is noticable brake fade. After two or three hard pumps the brake pedal gets quite mushy. This alarmed me so I took the car over to a one mile unfinished industrial loop to really give the brakes a test.

I executed some 30 MPH panic stops and noticed the same brake fade I was experiencing on the highway. I did one lap to let the brakes cool down and executed an 80 MPH to zero threshold stop and was quite impressed with the stopping power. I accelerated to about 40 MPH, hit the brakes and the pedal went to the floor. Not good. I did another lap to let the brakes cool down and I had a nice solid pedal again.

So, either the brake pads are crap or the brake fluid is full of water and air bubbles. Probably a big deal but worth paying very close attention to.