Worrying Brake Problems

[Simon Linton]

There's a very worrying thread in the swedespeed forum where someone fitted aftermarket pads (may be EBC ones, but check the thread) and found that they were excellent in the dry but literally useless when wet.

He was looking for less brake dust and nearly went to a better place than this as a result.

The moral? stick to standard Volvo pads unless you're on a track.

Simon,

You have a very good point. Putting 'Track Standard' pads on a road car is, in my opinion, not a smart thing to do.
The operating temperatures are so high, that under normal road use it's hard to get the pads to perform correctly and a sticky end is just around the next corner (quite literally).

I just sold an FTO for my T5. I tried Red Stuff on it once! Worse mistake ever! So I speak from experience!

Ian

Hiya!
Sounds like air in the system.
One of the problems with the turbo car brakes (T5 /R models)is the brake lines run quite close to the turbo so boiling up the fluid. The problem is more than likely with the rear brakes as the fluid has a long way to travel. Also theres a lot of traps and turns on the way back there for air to be trapped in so even if they have been bled once they probably still have air in the system. Try bleeding them (rear) several times and you'll be surprised by the amount of air in them!!!! The brake pedal should come up nicely after that, and better feel to the pedal. The brakes should be more than up to the job in hand after that!!
Hope this helps
Good luck
p.s. Try Dot 5 fluid as well!

Bit of an update :-

As I mentioned earlier, I took the car to a local brake specalist. They agree that it is air, but had no luck shifting it today.
The owner has a mate that works on Central Scotlands Polices Volvo's. He's off next Thursday and has kindly offered to come take a look. He says he has a special tool that allows him to do something thing the 'Load Balance Sensor'???? It all got out of my depth, but everyone seems confident that it can be sorted.

Ian

[Bob]

There was a issue on the 850 T5 brakes going on a few years ago that focused on the poor pedal response and the pedal travelling a long way, sometimes to the floor. I never heard any more about it, so it is possible the problem was resolved for the 70 series. If you ever experienced brake fade, it was like that. The Rover V8 3500 we used in the police in the 1970's suffered from it dreadfully.

As Simon says, the standard brakes are inadequate for all the T5 and R range 850's. They cope with gentle/normal driving, but don't work too well when you want to drive a bit more briskly. Uprating is the only answer, or put a lump of wood under the gas pedal!!