I am new to brakes help me!

Hey,

Okay heres the run down... My breaks suck and they are getting old....


I know this because I was following a car about a car and a halfs distance apart when it slammed its breaks...


When I slammed my breaks I felt heavy pressure pushing up on the pedal...

What do I need to do to correct this problem, and can someone explain to me how our breaks work.

My eclipse is a

1996 SPYDER GS 4G64 2.4 L ENGINE
www.cardomain.com/id/trueeclipse

how stuff works is a great place to learn the basics on.... well, how stuff works

here is a link to brakes-
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/search.php?search=brakes&fr=ch
skip past the "sponsor search results" to the "how stuff works results"

hope that helps you some

if you need new brakes then replace them. if you don't knwo what your doing then i would take it to a shop and just have a tune-up done. you might just need new pads but usually when you need new pads it starts squealing. have them checked out though before you just go buying parts.

do you have anti-lock brakes?