Question about brakes on a 2000 SLE

[jdamon]

I am in the process of buying a used solara, as my current car (98 VW golf GTI VR6) has 125k and has an expensive maintanence history. I test drove a Solara, and I liked it a lot, but I have a question about the brakes. My golf is a standard, and the brakes are awsome. As soon as you tap on the peddle, the brakes grab right away. The Solara on the other hand is an automatic, and to me the brakes are really squishy. I had to push the peddle pretty hard to get the car to stop. I have driven many cars as I travel a lot for work, and it really didn't seem out of the ordinary, but can the Solara's brakes ever be as good as my Golf's? I've done some reading on the board here, but I am not sure which brake upgrades will give the desired results. Will I have to change the pads only? Or will I have to buy bigger rotors too? Are the ss brake lines necessary? Also, how common is the problem with the leaky brake booster? I am assuming that all camrys have this booster. Thanks in advance for your help, I look forward to being a card carying member of this club.

Jeff

[bkp_duke]

get some big brakes w/ the TRD brake lines.

you might want to upgrade the wheels too. the brakes are matched to the rubber (i.e. why bother with better brakes when all it will do is engage the ABS b/c the rubber can't keep from loosing traction)

[jdamon]

The wheels are the alloy ones that come with the SLE and the tires looked pretty good. I understand what you are saying about the braking matching the tires and such, but my concern is a little different. I don't care for the responsiveness of the brake peddle (hydrolics?). Can you put better brake fluid in there? Will that make the peddle more responsive. I know that bigger disks will stop the car in a shorter distance and be more responsive in general, but the squishy peddle still bothers me. Does any one have a similar experience?

[SC V6]

im not sure but I thought the golf was all wheel drive.. I maybe mistaken, but if it is.. then you probably had awsome braking... in which case... the solara will never compete.. since u had the power of the brakes being sent to the 4 brakes on the judgement of the computer... so which ever wheel was getting a good grip it got more braking pressure... on the BMW's its called Dynamic Braking Control... and if the golf had something similar to that.. ur never going to get close
later
Scott

[Jon11582]

Does the Golf have 4 wheel disc?

99-2000 Solara coupes have front disc/rear drum. 2000 convertible and 2001+ coupes all have 4 disc standard I think.
I have a 2000 coupe. I drove my moms Highlander which has 4 wheel disc, and that braking is much more sensitive than mine. I'm not sure if its directly because of the 4 wheel discs, but its what I noticed was different about the brakes without digging into specs (such as if the standard pads were diff, etc)

BTW, I dont think the all wheel drive matters at all for braking. It just means the car uses 4 wheels to accelerate, not decelerate. I never read up on dynamic braking control before, but it seems an independent feature from 4 wheel drive since one needs a driveshaft and the other only needs an intellegent brake dynamic computer

STi VR6 is FWD btw.

--EDIT--

Just looked it up. GTI VR6 98 indeed came with 4 wheel disc brakes standard. If I was a betting man, id say the Solara your looking at is a 99-00 and thats why the braking isnt as grippy. Doesn't mean its that much worse, just means you have to slam harder to get the same braking power. Edmunds reports both 60-0 stopping distances as 139ft for the STI VR6 98 and the Solara 00.

[SC V6]

what I was talking about was a system that BMW uses.. it sends braking power to which ever wheel isn't slipping... its defintally different than having 4 disk brakes let me tell u.. it has a computer that runs it and it sends the right braking power to each of the wheels to slow it the best.. its crazy... I thought that the golf had this.. but I guess not... my mom has a BMW 330xi and that things all wheel drive.. but the braking system is AWESOME..
later
Scott
p.s. that bitc$ corners like a mother fu#ker

[BabyFaceFinster]

I am in the process of buying a used solara, as my current car (98 VW golf GTI VR6) has 125k and has an expensive maintanence history. I test drove a Solara, and I liked it a lot, but I have a question about the brakes. My golf is a standard, and the brakes are awsome. As soon as you tap on the peddle, the brakes grab right away. The Solara on the other hand is an automatic, and to me the brakes are really squishy.
Jeff

Get cross drilled/slotted rotors.

[jdamon]

The Solara I am looking at has 4 wheel disk brakes as well as my Golf. The disks on the front wheels of the golf are bigger than the solara's, but I am very intrigued by that stopping distance spec.... I guess I like what I am used to, it will just take some time to get used to the Solara. It may be fun to upgrade it this summer too. Thanks for the responses!

Jeff

[Mole]

get some big brakes w/ the TRD brake lines.

you might want to upgrade the wheels too. the brakes are matched to the rubber (i.e. why bother with better brakes when all it will do is engage the ABS b/c the rubber can't keep from loosing traction)

there is no such thing as TRD brake lines for our platform
there is no such thing as a big brake that went into production (only a few custom made ones.)

i also never heard of that upgrade wheel thing as well.


jdamon-

i can def see why you feel a big difference in brake stop distance. take the two cars and compare them. the solara is about 3400 lbs. the gti is about 3000lbs. give or take the weight of the driver and its about a 400lb difference.

not to mention the solara is more of a luxury car, not a sport car.

however some simple mods like upgrading into SS brake lines from Goodridge and some higher performance brake pads should make things stop a lot faster.

[bkp_duke]

TRDMole177 - stopping power is determined by 2 things:

1) amount of rubber on the road. If you have thinner tires (i.e. 205 vs. 245mm wide) you have less surface area in contact with the road and therefore less grip. This is where my comment about bigger wheels comes in.

2) force applied to wheel rotation by brakes. Increased stopping power can be gained by:
a) increasing the pressure put on the rotors by the calipers (i.e. more break fluid, but you need stronger lines)
b) increasing the surface area of the rotors in contact with the pads (i.e. bigger discs)

And yes, TRD did make break lines for the Solara. I've scanned in the pics in the TRD catalog just so you don't accuse me of being full of it.



I never claimed TRD made a big brake for the Solara, but there are many aftermarket big brakes for the Camry platform that would work just fine.

[geminimouse]

99-2000 Solara coupes have front disc/rear drum. 2000 convertible and 2001+ coupes all have 4 disc standard I think.

Thought our rear brakes were disc and drum

[impactX]

OEM pads sucks, period.

The car you drove probably has glazed pads. Get some Hawk HPS pads (same price as OEM) and that will take care of the crappy braking. Also, get some Goodridge SS brakelines if you are still not satisfied. TRD SS brakelines for Solara was made by Goodridge until it was discontinued due to some defects.

[FLASH]

Does Hawk Make the rear pads? I looked and only found the fronts for $62..

[geminimouse]

There's also Porterfield R4S..nice brake pads

[bkp_duke]

4 disc standard on all V6 models. disc/drum combo on I4s