Brakes suddenly not working- 2000 Honda Civic EX
 

I just bought a 2000 Honda Civic Ex with ~108K miles. The rear brakes were adjusted last week. I drove for around 20 miles without any issues and after about a 15 minute drive the brakes suddenly gave up and needed to be floored all the way for the car to stop. The Brake light is on but the brake fluid resvervoir is full. Can anyway tell me what could be possibly wrong here? :confused:

Eks do not have rear brakes stock, those are the ebrakes, anyway you probably just need to bleed your brakes. If that doesnt work then post back here...

HCF

Civic Club

Youtube

Turtle, the drums on the rears of our cars should have a bleeder bolt on it to bleed any air out. Seeing that shows that brake fluid does go back there to stop the car when you press on the brakes. If there were no "brakes" in the rear except the cable driven e-brake, you would only have 3 hard lines near the prop valve and not 5. ;) I had a 92 VX hatch a little while ago and I broke the bleeder bolt of the rear driver side drum. THAT was a lot of fun to deal with, let me tell ya. The pedal started just going to the floor with no braking power at all since fluid was leaking out.

OP, the only thing I can think of would be to have the brakes re-bled. Pushing all the way to the floor with no pedal pressure is a sign of low fluid, leaking fluid, or air in the system I would imagine. Since you are noting that the master cylinder is still full, I am assuming air is trapped in the system.

EDIT - Normally, you do not have to bleed the rear brakes. Usually, only the fronts need to be done FYI, but I would suggest looking into bleeding all four corners of the car if needed.

So the drum brake actually does engage a little when using the brake pedal? I had no idea >_>

Dude... I have no words. Seriously, you must be female or something. :D

Thank you everyone for replying. I showed it to our mechanic and he replaced the master cylinder and its working fine now. If I had seen the replies earlier I would have tried bleeding the brakes first :(

Also the mechanic charged me 120$ for replacing the master cylinder is that reasonable?

That's labor, parts and all included? If yes, I'd say that's a fair price. I know I've charged 3x that on some cars to change a brake MC and do all the bleeding to make the new one work as expected. Granted these little hondas are a little easier than a big-body 70s plymouth ....

:) thats a relief!

Thank you all !!!

Obviously no useful words.

Hey Guys,
Even thought the brakes work fine now, the brake light has come on again. What could be the reason for this. I just hope it doesn't mean my brakes are screwed again!