Our son's '06 Civic Hybrid, previously our car, was under our roof for a couple of weeks, so I brought it in for a brake fluid flush at at nearby Honda dealership, Thursday of last week. Drove it straight home, just a few blocks, didn't really notice anything, and I'm just not that familiar with the car any more. Anyway: This Tuesday we drove it about 30 km on an errand. Stopped, or attempted to stop, at a yellow light. The anti-lock braking made lots of noises, and I ended up well over the crosswalk. A little further, both my wife and I started noticing: every time we stopped there was this strange left/right rocking sensation. Took it easy for the rest of the drive, wasn't sure what to make of it. Yesterday we picked up our son and daughter-in-law with the car from the airport. My son got behind the wheel, drove about 100 feet, touched the brake, and immediately, unprompted, asked what the heck is with the brakes. We swapped cars with them, it's going in this morning to the same dealership. I suspect we've only got two of the four brakes working, the right front and left rear, but not sure. Any ideas? Any suggestions on how to approach this with the dealership?
Your suspicion could be right. The brake system is divided on modern cars for safety. So a major failure only results loss of half the brakes instead of all. Split diagonally would allow the best braking control with just two working. It is also the order for the flush procedure on my old HHR. So the dealer likely got air into one side of the system. A proper flush should fix it. Though, if air got into the master cylinder, it might have to be removed to bleed it properly.
At the dealership. They're looking into it. Cautioned them to test drive it after they're done. Just driving over here was freaky: decided to stop for a yellow light, with what looked to be lots of leeway. The car was doing a little fishtail motion, had my heart going.
