So I take my 07 HHR LS into my local dealership for the pulsation in the front brakes. They put new pads on machined the rotors and tell that is all set and to come pick it up. I show up get my keys get in go to put it in gear and the brake pedal goes right to the floor, no resistance. Then it gets a little pressure so I go around the block and my brakes go from about an 1/2" to inch of play before they worked on it to 3" to 4" of play before it starts to brake.
I turn around and take it back the tech says feels like air in the lines. Then 5 mins later the service person (writer, manager not sure) says that the brakes are normal.
I didn't take the car home and they are going to look at it but has anybody run into this. I believe there is air in the lines but the service person says that there isn't and the brakes are normal but they will look at it anyway. Having half the total pedal travel in play is not normal!!!
Any info or experiences after having this work performed with the same issues would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!!!!

 

They didn't properly bleed your brakes and they need to. This should be a simple thing to rectify.

 

First the pedal going to the floor means that no one test the car. When you first put brakes in unless you pump the brakes back up the pedal goes to the floor since the pistons have been retracted to get the new pads in.

Second, there should be no sir in the lines because there should have been no reason to remove the lines from the calipers to put pads in the brakes so there should be no air in the lines.

If your pedal is low compared to before something else is most likely wrong, what I can't even imagine what they did wrong.

 

Why would they need to bleed the brakes from changing pads?? I've never done brakes on an HHR but have done many brake jobs on other vehicles and have never needed to remove the brake lines for a simple pad/rotor job.

 

True, but we don't know what they did. I think they cracked a line open. And his current pedal travel indicates to me they need to be bled.

I also don't know how the tech who pulled it out of the stall, kept from hitting something after he moved the car out of the shop and parked it, since Carmanhhr experienced a pedal that went to the floor on his first brake application. Also they put pads on the vehicle. I wonder where the fluid level in the master cylinder is now.

 

You know it's stories like this that make people refuse to take cars to the dealer for service.

My local Chevy dealer is part of one of the biggest private car dealers in the country and going there to get service is an absolute nightmare. They spend more time trying to convince me to give them a perfect score on the GM survey than trying to earn the perfect score by doing a good job.

The dealer I bought my HHR from is 20+ miles out of town, a small rural dealer. Does a wonderful job of taking care of me and my HHR. When I had my HHR in for the transmission recall we spoke about my 2002 Silverado's steering issue. They arranged a free courtesy repair of the steering column for me and told me to go home get the truck and come right back and they would do the job while I waited. I do have a bad feeling GM will be closing these guys simply because of their much lower sales volume than the big store in town that can't fix something to save their life.

 

Me too!!! But the symptons indicate air in the lines. They just changed the pads and machined the rotors so there should have been no need do crack any lines open.

 

I was told that the tech took it for a ride for a few miles and the brakes worked fine. So I showed them a cell phone pic of the mileage when I dropped it off (293.2 miles) and what it was right now (293.7) and told them that there had been test run and that the vehicle was not safe to be driven. They they called enterprise and proceeded to get me a rental so they could look at my brakes even though that thought they were normal.

 

Well brakes are fixed!! They had to replace the front calipers and obviously bleed the brakes afterwards. They weren't sure why the tech had to replace them or what was wrong with them but my brakes work and I will be sure not to visit that dealership again.