Braking Issue, Potentially Electrical

nfarrar

nfarrar

New member
So last year I crashed my JKU, did a bunch of damage. Had life changes to deal with at the same time, so resolving things have taken way longer than they should have. Made some poor decisions on how to fix things up at the same time (should have just replaced axle and worked with reputable shop, rather than trying to save costs and cut corners), which complicated things greatly and wasted a bunch of money (original post here: https://wayalife.com/showthread.php/49242-Alignment-Questions-After-Accident-Repairs-amp-Upgrades).

I ended up working with a local, high-end offroad shop and have resolved everything except for one remaining issue: the brakes. They are periodically/intermittently extremely soft (like press all the way down, and you still keep rolling forward for a nerve-wracking amount of time).

Here's what the local shop did:

  • Checked brakes, brake lines (all good).
  • Replaced brake fluid.
  • Replaced the vacuum pump (temporarily, original is back in place).
After each of these, the issue was still present. They believe that the issue is being caused by intermittent power to the vacuum pump, but the electrical work / diagnostics are outside of what they do. When driving the vehicle, it appears that this is almost always noticeable after it's been sitting for awhile and has just been started up, but also appears to happen much less after it's been driving for a bit. They're recommendation was to take it to the dealership for the electrical work, they believed it should be covered under warranty since the Jeep was purchased new in 2016.

Note: At one point during the fiasco, I started getting troubleshooting/error lights about the battery, turn signals, and headlights not working/being detected. Those codes stopped appearing, but could potentially have been related and AFAIK, nothing was done to resolve it; that junk could turn up again.

Because it's intermittent it's difficult to diagnose/troubleshoot. I've had really bad experiences with the service department at the local dealership, so I'm hesitant to go to them. Any advice on what I should do? Thanks!
 
Last edited:
jeeeep

jeeeep

Hooked
nfarrar said:
So last year I crashed my JKU, did a bunch of damage. Had life changes to deal with at the same time, so resolving things have taken way longer than they should have. Made some poor decisions on how to fix things up at the same time (should have just replaced axle and worked with reputable shop, rather than trying to save costs and cut corners), which complicated things greatly and wasted a bunch of money (original post here: https://wayalife.com/showthread.php/49242-Alignment-Questions-After-Accident-Repairs-amp-Upgrades).

I ended up working with a local, high-end offroad shop and have resolved everything except for one remaining issue: the brakes. They are periodically/intermittently extremely soft (like press all the way down, and you still keep rolling forward for a nerve-wracking amount of time).

Here's what the local shop did:

  • Checked brakes, brake lines (all good).
  • Replaced brake fluid.
  • Replaced the vacuum pump (temporarily, original is back in place).
After each of these, the issue was still present. They believe that the issue is being caused by intermittent power to the vacuum pump, but the electrical work / diagnostics are outside of what they do. When driving the vehicle, it appears that this is almost always noticeable after it's been sitting for awhile and has just been started up, but also appears to happen much less after it's been driving for a bit. They're recommendation was to take it to the dealership for the electrical work, they believed it should be covered under warranty since the Jeep was purchased new in 2016.

Note: At one point during the fiasco, I started getting troubleshooting/error lights about the battery, turn signals, and headlights not working/being detected. Those codes stopped appearing, but could potentially have been related and AFAIK, nothing was done to resolve it; that junk could turn up again.

Because it's intermittent it's difficult to diagnose/troubleshoot. I've had really bad experiences with the service department at the local dealership, so I'm hesitant to go to them. Any advice on what I should do? Thanks!
Click to expand...

Sounds like 2 separate issues. but being a 2016 can't hurt to find out if it is covered under warranty.

"error lights about the battery, turn signals, and headlights not working" could be clock spring or the turn signal module or the the cruise control module.
The modules are in the steering under the horn cover. You actually have to remove them to replace the clock spring. Do you also get the airbag warning light on?

Brakes could be improper bleeding, have you tried runniing direct power to the vacuum pump to test if it really is the issue?

When you start your Jeep and the brakes feel spongy do you hear kind of a whoop whoop whir odd sound?

I tried to reverse bleed my brakes and had a similar issue. Come to find out, that was not a proper method to bleed ABS - works on older cars but not on ABS.

I'd rebleed the brakes, starting with rear passenger - rear driver - front passenger - front driver...

Now the fun part, take a helper, your tools and brake fluid with you, find a stretch of isolated road where you can get up to about 40mph and slam on the brakes to kick in the ABS.
Check your brake fluid, fill if needed than do it again.

After the 2nd time bleed your brakes once more then do the abs check again. This should firm them back up and get rid of the air vacucum that builds up in the pump when they're not bled properly.

I'd still get the dealer's input on the electrical issue. With so many shared multi-duty modules new vehicles have on them it sucks trying to diagnose.

Long gone are the days of each electrical component having it's own wire/relay/fuse
 
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