I bought my 8 new in 1/05 and it now has 64K miles, and it has been a great DD, but recently the car has been showing its age. The brake pedal over the past few months has gotten to the point where it takes more press-in travel than normal to activate the pistons on the discs. It was so slight that I did not notice it until I had a service at the dealer and it was mentioned by the mechanic. He said that nothing was wrong with the brake system, but the travel was more than usual for this type of car.

I noticed that the first press takes about 60% of the distance to the floor, but if I release and immediately press again, the pedal gets progressively firmer in the first 20% and does not go further to the floor. I thought that perhaps there was air in the line, so the whole system was flushed and new fluid was replaced, but no difference.

The OEM pads are now listed at 3/32 front and 4/32 rear. I realize that these are near the end of their life and wonder if they simply need to be changed. Or, perhaps there is another issue with the MC? I also searched and found that there is a "brake booster" that might need to be adjusted (I thought that the pad/pedal travel adjustment would be automatic?)

After rescuing my car from a bad plug/line scenario that took two days to repair, I'm hoping that there is an easy to repair solution for the brake pedal issue. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Change the pads, check thickness of rotors (replace if necessary), bleed the lines, report back.

 

Will do, and thanks. Those tasks are on the new to-do list.

 

Update - found out that the slide pins were seized in two brakes (one front and one rear) which caused the issue with the strange pedal pressure. Turns out that the brakes could have gone another 20K or more, but they were not uniformly used (50% more used on one brake pad versus the opposite side) so I replaced F and R brakes with OEM pads. It's like new, and the pedal pressure is back to spec. Now, off to Seafoam the engine.

 

Thanks for posting the result. This can help a lot of folks