warminwisc

Brakes are fine

jayclapp

I am in complete agreement with your original post on this issue. But, it seemed that not all accepted your post and I was merely trying to add a little additional information to justify why you made that very good post.

My apologies if you misunderstood my intent.

Viper6

Before spending bucks on the aftermarket, bleed your brakes first. This will elim any air in the lines and ensure all the force from the pedal/booster translates to the calipers... it will increase the feel from my experience and may satisfy you, all for $10 in fluid and an hour of time.

You should bleed brakes every 2 years in my opinion (depending on climate) as the fluid adsorbs water over time and will degrade. So if you have gone longer than this I definitely recommend doing a bleed job first!!!

just my $.02

HiloDB1

iTrader: (3)

No problem. My appologies for misunderstanding your intent. We are definately on the same page here.

LS430Lexus

I have bleed the brakes twice. When I got the car the brake fluid was very dark despite having been bleed about 2 years ago. The color went from dark to just a bit of black. So I had them flushed and bleed again, color is better but still a bit darker then honey. Improved pedal feel but room for improvement.

Lynzoid

you have non-bleedable contaminant (almost solid) inside your cylinder/s

LS430Lexus

Thank you Lynzoid, can you expand on that a little bit? How do I get rid of it? Do I try to clean out the cylinders, replacing seals? Replacing all of the cylinders seems abit overboard but brakes are important.

BTW, I believe this is a common problem. When looking at LS's, I saw and continue to see many cars with dark, almost black brake fluid.

Lynzoid

Just replace all the seals and clean out the dirt inside the cylinders. Cyl's themselves are ok, no need to replace these.
If you need part no.s for your year for the cyl. seal kits - just ask.
Also i recommend replacing all brake hoses, cos that's where contaminant coming from - innards of hoses disintegrate with time.
Yes, this is VERY common on LS430. So common, that dealers usually not arsed to fix it and just say 'it's how ls brakes supposed to feel'... what a bs.

fergo308

I've recently gone to TRD pads front and rear on my LS,and the performance compared to bendix front and OEM rear pads is VERY noticeable.
The TRD pads have a quite high copper content,and as such,give a firmer pedal feel and sharper initial bite than what they replaced.
I have a lot more confidence in the brakes now,than I did in the std setup.

I will be fitting braided lines in the next week or so,so there should be another small improvement in feel from those also.


I'll put in my 2 cents on big brakes while I'm here: I don't know how people can say that going to a larger diameter rotor will give no gain in braking efficiency. The same amount of force (same calliper and hydraulics),applied to a longer moment of leverage (larger diameter rotor) will slow the car down faster than the std system and diameter disc will. It's not going to be a chalk and cheese difference,but there will be an improvement. Any improvement on an 1800+ kg car is worthwhile in my book.

I totally agree with the comments in regards to tyres. Your tyres are the most important link in the safety and performance chain. You could have 400mm discs with 8 pot brembos,but run crappy tyres,and all you'll do is lock wheels and slide down the street. Pirelli had a great ad campaign back in the 90's that still rings true: Power is nothing without control.


Justin...

94LSon20

I will admit, I did think of this thread while driving over the weekend and took everyones replies into consideration. We have good brake on our vehicles. Yes they might seem a little soft compared to other vehicles, but for the size and weight of our cars, we do have a nice set of brakes. Also, new tires do make a world of difference. I recently installed a new set of Continental Extreme Contact DWS on my rims and they have satisfied me so far.

Bocatrip

It's a combination of the soft pedal as well as the play before the car reacts to the pressure. I'm always changing cars (G35 and LS430) so I notice the difference everytime I get into the LS. It's just something I have not been able to get used to. I hope I never have to make an emergency stop.

94LSon20

I have. She did a good job

Jabberwock

Coincidentally I had to make an emergency stop today from about 40 to 10mph - had to jump on the brakes and they locked up and pulsed like they are supposed to- car came to a very rapid and well controlled stop. We were down in Dallas-Plano area going to lunch and some D-bag in a pickup truck came around in front of our car and then slammed on his brakes right before an intersection (but with a green light) - it really seemed to my wife and I that he was deliberately trying to have us rear end him. When I stopped short he accelerated away but I caught up to him stopped at the next light and he looked really nervous as we were pretty obvious in pulling alongside and staring at him. He looked like a scrofulous little jail weasel. He wouldn't meet my stare and quickly turned right and took off. I had heard about this happening to people that drive nice cars but it was a first for me.

Long story short when you jump on the brakes in a 06 LS430 they respond very well.

Bocatrip

This is very encouraging. For me, whenever I come across wierdos(pretty often) I just look the other way. Way too many crazys that won't think twice about ruining your life.

Jabberwock

I agree - not worth getting into it with strangers on the street unless its a life or death thing. Just to clarify I was not trying to provoke anything or to be a hard guy with this dude. But given how weird the event at the intersection was - we were just very curious as to who was driving the truck - I was thinking maybe a very old person or a teenager texting - something like that. Then when I saw the jailbird looking guy acting nervous it just clicked as to what had just likely happened. If he had made any physical move toward us we would certainly not have engaged if at all possible.