91 Ciera brakes WAAAY too sensitive

[vbettiga]

My fiance's 91 ciera brakes very suddenly. It seems like the brakes are either fully disengaged or fully engaged with nothing in between. You push the brake to slow down, and suddenly the tires are screeching. Seeing as how we can't afford another car yet and that we haul our 5 month old son around in this we are very concerned about safety and getting this fixed ASAP and ACAP (as cheaply as possible). Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[jsgold]

I would have to ask you, WHICH brakes are you talking about....front or back ones? Was there work just done on them? I would think being a 91 you would have disc brakes on front and pads on rear. If it is the rear ones you mean we ran into that on our old 91 Corsica. One rear would "lock up" as soon as any pressure was put on it going down hill off our driveway, usually in the morning. The rear pads don't do much as a rule and over the years they develop dust, rust, and just poor working brakes. I tried cleaning them but we then found cracked shoe and rusty hardware as well as drums. Replaced the whole assembly and they worked fine. If you are having front brake issues are they just stopping too fast, one locking up or what? My son's Beretta had an issue where one of the front brake hoses was rusted to the point it was choking the brake fluid and locking the wheel up. I have heard others have this from time to time. Not sure what else to suggest...

[vbettiga]

Sorry about taking so long to respond. Thanks for the information. The problem is the front brakes. No work has been done to them. I figured I would have to just replace all the hardware. When I do that I'll take a look at the lines and see if there are any problems. Will post results ... when I have enough money to get the parts.