Barabaraok: Brake pressure

[Ted III]

Barbara & David, when did WRV replace your master cylinder/booster pump assembly. Was this something that they did under warranty or was it something you paid out of pocket. I would really like to know because my wife drove our 2005 - 34' and literally said she did not have the leg strength to stop the coach. I had twice during our warranty period complained about this and they bled the brakes once and rebuilt a wheel cylinder but it never coorrected the tremendous amount of poedal pressure required to stop this coach. I frequently use the emergency brake when we are at a stop light or somewhere that we have to stop for any length of time.

[Ted III]

Barbara & David, when did WRV replace your master cylinder/booster pump assembly. Was this something that they did under warranty or was it something you paid out of pocket. I would really like to know because my wife drove our 2005 - 34' and literally said she did not have the leg strength to stop the coach. I had twice during our warranty period complained about this and they bled the brakes once and rebuilt a wheel cylinder but it never coorrected the tremendous amount of poedal pressure required to stop this coach. I frequently use the emergency brake when we are at a stop light or somewhere that we have to stop for any length of time.

[Barbaraok]

No, it wasn't under warranty. We had it done last summer. The first time at Braezel Brothers in Centralia and they just replaced the master cylinder (Dave was almost literally standing on the brakes - they tried bleeding, no go). And they worked fine after that, except that about 1 month later we had a leak from under the front of the coach - the booster pump went. They originally didn't replace the booster pump in order to save us money. Best laid plans ..... Anyway, we now know that, at least for us, it is better to replace whole assemblies so that everything matches. I think the whole assembly was around $1000 including new hoses.

Haven't had any trouble since then and the brakes are very responsive. And in a panic stop (think Chicago traffic on a Friday afternoon ) they did just what they needed to do.

[OldForester]

We too have the issue of needing a lot of pressure on the brake pedal to stop/hold the coach. I have found two work-arounds -- first is to do like EngMike said -- pump the brake several times when the engine is first started, and two -- put the transmission in neutral when at a stop light or trying to hold the coach when it's pointed downhill at an off ramp stop.

I use the second approach a lot at stop lights/signs. Shifting into neutral relieves all that torque you're trying to brake against, and it's a quick step to go back to drive as the light changes.