Soft pedal after heavy braking

Hello this is my first post I have a 2009 Ford Escape XLS and when I apply a sudden brake the car would skid to the right slightly then the pedal would go soft and take a while for the car to stop.When the car is off and the brake pedal is pumped the brakes get hard and when I turn back on the car it would sink and if I were to pump the pedal several times the brakes would go back to normal and the car would stop without any problems.This would only happen under a very heavy brakes being applied A mechanic told me it could be the ABS module is bad but I have no ABS light on the dashboard on there is no brake light coming on. Could you give me an idea what is the problem.Thank You.Andrew.

well first things first check the brake pads make sure they are not worn out and shoes in the rear make sure nothing is leaking,if everything looks good next thing i would do is bleed the brake system as it sounds like there is air in the system.


the other thing is maybe lubricating the caliper slides making sure they are not sticking causing the fluid to overheat and cause sponginess

also with abs it should never lock up the brakes..... it will pulse the brakes till you stop one reason i don't like abs but it is common place so it could be the abs module acting up but i would check and bleed the system before i got that involved as the module is fairly expensive or at least in canada it pushing 1500.00 dollars for a replacement

Ok I took the car to a mechanic who specializes in brakes and was told the caliper piston on the right side is not retracting when the brakes are applied have to change both calipers

so it was a sticky caliper... hmmm,i had that happen on my mini-van.... just about caught fire,got it home and the rotors were glowing orange..... good thing i have family in the autoparts field... glad you got it figured out