Brake Maintenance

Brakes are one of the critical safety components of your car. They have to work. If they don't feel right or are making noise, you've got to get them taken care of. Now. It won't be any cheaper to do it next week, and you could get yourself - or somebody else - big time hurt between now and then.

Let's start with the one brake maintenance task you can do yourself - keeping an eye on the brake fluid level. (The very briefest of explanations of how brakes work: When you step on the pedal, your foot and a power booster push brake fluid through narrow hoses. At the far end of those hoses, that fluid pushes special pads against metal drums or disks attached to your wheels. The friction of those pads against the spinning drums or disks slows and stops the car. So the system needs brake fluid to work.) You'll find the brake fluid reservoir under the hood, on the driver's side at the back of the engine compartment. If you car is even remotely recent, it'll be see-through and you can tell the fluid level just by looking. If it's in the marked safe zone, you've done all the brake maintenance you need to. Close the hood and be on your way.

If the level is low (and your brakes are still working correctly), you'll need to add fluid. The cap of the reservoir will tell you what kind of fluid to add. It'll say "Use DOT 3 only" or "Use DOT 3 or 4 fluid only." It may call for DOT 5 fluid. Use what it calls for. DOT 3 and 4 fluids can be interchanged, but DOT 5 brake fluid is silicon-based and does not work in regular brake systems.

Buy a small container. Brake fluid adsorbs water vapor out of the air and goes bad when you store it even if you keep it capped. (For the same reason, don't use old brake fluid your roommate had sitting around.) Open the cap of the brake fluid reservoir and carefully pour in fresh brake fluid until the level is right. Reattach the reservoir cap, and you're done.

But be careful with brake fluid. The stuff will ruin your paint. Bad people have been known to write nasty things in brake fluid on ex-lovers' cars, permanently defacing them. (It's felony vandalism, so don't get any ideas.) Keep it away from your paint, and if you do drip any, wash it up immediately with soapy water.

If your brake fluid is low and your brakes feel spongy or you have to pump them to make the car stop, adding fluid won't be enough. (But do add the fluid.) The problem here is you have air in your brake system, and you'll have to take the car in and have a mechanic bleed the brakes. Bleeding the brakes forces out the old fluid - and any trapped air - and replaces it with new fluid. The reason you have to get the air out of your brake lines is that air compresses. If you have air in your brake system, stepping on the brake pedal doesn't force the fluid to squeeze the brake pads, it just squishes the air bubbles in the fluid. Bleeding that air out is the only way to fix it.

The other time you need to take your car into a shop is if you hear anything odd when you apply the brakes. Squealing, metallic rubbing, or maybe a rhythmic "shhht-shhht- shhht" that slows down as the car slows down. Those are all indications that your pads are worn, and maybe your brake disks are warped. Brakes do wear out. How fast depends a lot on where you live and how you drive, but somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 miles, you're gonna need new brake pads. (Hopefully that's all, but rotors do wear out eventually and can get warped if they get too hot.) When your brake pads wear completely out, all you may have to stop your car is metal rubbing against metal. It's not great for stopping, and it's guaranteed to do lots and lots of expensive and unnecessary damage.