Are brakes under powered on modern cars

[GrasB]

A friend has a mid-range Ibiza & it failed its first MOT on brake balance. The garage kind of sorted it, looks like they dropped in new discs & pads, to get it passed the MOT but it still wasn't spot on & got an advisory. I got handed the car & sorted the problem properly, a partial strip down of the callipers revealed a dodgy dust seal was causing one of the pads to twist & stick on when hot causing excessive wear. With a second new set of pads off I go to bed them in properly & what a shock I was in for...

At the 20-5mph set the brakes felt strong enough & improved on every application, maybe a little too sharp at the end of the process but I'm no used to heavy servo assistance. More importantly there was no pull on the brakes at all, even almost completely letting go of the steering wheel the car stopped straight as a die. Time for the 40-5mph set was okay, good initial bite again I felt it was a little too sharp but the power felt okay. Certainly didn't really have the confidence in them & seemed to lack modulation to them, but this is just a middle of the road hatchback not a high speed GT cruiser or track day special. Then onto the 80-10mph set... WTF happened to the bite? where's the power & what about modulation? At 80mph it I felt like I was gonna run out of runway even though I had over 200m meters to stop. Sure it improved as the speed reduced but it felt like the brakes where on the limit of their ability to stop the car above 50mph. Once I did the cool down process I then went for a 90mph emergency brake test, at high-speed triggering the ABS required some serious pedal pressure.

I voiced my disappointment & said I'd like to look at the brakes again, the owner then took the car for a trip around the airfield & was delighted with the brakes performance said that they'd never worked so well! Thinking I was just spoilt by the Alfa & Exige I borrowed a stock Seicento sporting... sure enough the Sei' was wiping the floor with the Ibiza hauling it's self down from 75mph (I couldn't get it to go faster than that onto the stretch of runway I have access too), sure it didn't have the bite of the Ibiza & you had to be positive with the brake pedal but you were never left in any doubt that this little car was going to stop.

It started me thinking about modern cars, how good are their brakes really?

 

[Angelfishsolo]

The only time I had a real chance to compare brakes was back in the mid 1990's. I had an old (1979) Audi 80 and it was in the garage for some repair work. I managed to wangle a Cavalier SRI for a week from my work and OMG what a difference. First time driving a car with servo brakes and ABS. When I got back into the Audi I found myself overshooting junctions by a large margin and had to learn to think about braking again. (This was after only a week).

Having watched Top Gear it seems that not all brakes are equal however. Some act like an on / off switch whilst others seem to try and stop the car with hope. That said all modern cars in MOT order will far outbreak the Highway code stopping distances.

 

[GrasB]

I'll agree that the Ibiza never got anywhere near needing the stopping distances in the HWC but compared to the Sei' (which incidentally has a brake system penned in the early to mid 90's) it really lacked power & confidence. What got me was how hard it was to trigger the ABS, it felt like my braking was limited by the brakes not the tyres. With the Sei' I could lock the fronts up at 60mph... my cars are in a different league but that's to be expected.

 

[XmisterIS]

Anything with discs is a dream compared to drum brakes! My parents had a very old Renault when I was a kid (mid-80's and the car was mid 70's). Twice, my mum put her foot on the brake pedal and nothing happened. On the second occasion she insisted that my dad replaced the thing - we got an A-reg Renault 5, which seemed like pure luxury by comparison! E.g. the thing actually stopped in less than the length of a Heathrow runway when the brake was applied, and it would get to 70mph without a tailwind ...

 

[Bromptonaut]

I drive two different cars regularly and absolute confidence inthe brakes of both. One is a 2005 Citroen Berlingo front disc/rear drum with servo assistance. Diesel so there's a vacuum pump rather than a connection to the manifold. Clear progressive action through to ABS - no ESP or EBS to complicate the set up.

Other is a 2000 Citroen Xantia. Discs all round fully powered using hydraulic pressure from the suspension system. The pedal operates a valve rather than a master cylinder. Less fierce than in the previous BX but a firm squeeze on the pedal will have the thing standing on it's nose. It took a long time for servo systems to match that set up for stopping power but once they could Citoren moved to conventional systems from the C5 on.

 

[gavroche]

Once I did the cool down process I then went for a 90mph emergency brake test, at high-speed triggering the ABS required some serious pedal pressure.

It started me thinking about modern cars, how good are their brakes really?

You did an emergency stop at 90mph!!!!Wouldn't like to try it myself. As for how good brakes are on modern cars, the answer is : Very good.
Try a car from the 60's and then a modern one.
No comparison. Give me the modern one every time.
I have a citroen c3. The brakes on that are excellent. In fact, I think Citroen have the best brakes of any car.
My wife has a Peugeot 307 and the brakes are not as good as the c3. Strange really as Peugeot and Citroen are the same manufacturer really.

 

[PaulSecteur]

The brakes on my mk5 golf GTI were prety damn effective!

 

[Black Sheep]

The only Ibiza I've driven is the estate version, I found the brakes to be absolutely fine.

 

[GrasB]

You did an emergency stop at 90mph!!!!Wouldn't like to try it myself.

Why not? I expect the car I drive to be able to cope with needing to come to a stop from high speed very rapidly under full control.

I'm thinking I'm just not used to high level of servo assistance on the brakes that have been about for the last 5 years or so.

 

[Archie_tect]

I lived in fear of having to do an emergency stop in our Citroen BX Estate following any car with ABS... mind you I still hate that bag of spanners feel when ABS cuts in.

 

[fossyant]

There was once I had to back off braking (not activated ABS) as the car behind me couldn't pull up.

TBH very impressed with both our cars - 99 Yaris and a 2002 P12 Primera (not exactly NEW now although had Yaris from new and the Primera from 10 months old). The Primera stops on a sixpence with full disks and electronic ABS, and it's a heavy ass.

My sister doesn't drive their newish Astra Turbo as the brakes are too powerful - so sticks with their Y plate Rover 216 GTi !!!!!! She's a carp driver anyway !

 

[dan_bo]

The first car I ever drove was a 440 cube plymouth barracuda. Capable of 10 second 1/4s with drum brakes all round-scary. The thing would spin the wheels in reverse but would need the entire length of the M6 toll to stop from 80.

 

[fossyant]

Ha - US cars are Scary !!

 

[GrasB]

I emailed someone who develops after market brake setups & he gave me a lot of information.

The long & the short of it is that cars produced over the last 10 years have had brake systems which have progressively got less powerful for a given pad pressure, however the servo assistance has progressively increased the pad pressure to compensate (there are lots of reasons for this). As most people judge power but how sharp the initial bite of brakes is this works fine, however for people who compartmentalise braking performance & are used to brakes which operate at lower pad pressures they will be left feeling that the brakes are underpowered compared those brakes. The upshot of all this is that someone who is trained & is skilled will be able to stop the same car quicker with a 15 year old brake setup, but 'average joe' will stop quicker with a setup designed in the last 5 years.

 

[HLaB]

Of the car's I've driven the newer the more effective braking seems to be.