Soft Brake Pedal

    Went to the dealer yesterday to have my brakes checked. The pedal was down and had to start standing on it or double pumping to stop. The service manager took it out to test drive and came back saying everything was the way it should be. "You got to be kidding" was my first response until he explained what he did. He said that the anti-lock brake unit has air in it from the factory, he took my SL up to 75 mph and stood on the brakes to engage the anti-lock while turning the wheel in both directions. He says that there is a bleeder valve inside the unit that purges the air by doing this. All I can say is by comparison it now feels like power brakes! High pedal, rock solid. He didn't even bleed the brakes or do anything else. While I was there the dealer asked him why doesn't he do this before they deliver a new unit and his reply was "I get yelled at enough for the way I drive these things now!" He also said he has called Polaris at least a dozen times on this and they have not done anything yet. He did mention that some units come in just fine, in fact some are too sensitive. All I can say is I couldn't be happier with the results and was told that this was a 1 time thing and should never need to be done again. Finally a dealer I have confidence in! :D

    4 Wheels move the body, 3 Wheels move the soul!

    Quote from garyw

    Went to the dealer yesterday to have my brakes checked. The pedal was down and had to start standing on it or double pumping to stop. The service manager took it out to test drive and came back saying everything was the way it should be. "You got to be kidding" was my first response until he explained what he did. He said that the anti-lock brake unit has air in it from the factory, he took my SL up to 75 mph and stood on the brakes to engage the anti-lock while turning the wheel in both directions. He says that there is a bleeder valve inside the unit that purges the air by doing this. All I can say is by comparison it now feels like power brakes! High pedal, rock solid. He didn't even bleed the brakes or do anything else. While I was there the dealer asked him why doesn't he do this before they deliver a new unit and his reply was "I get yelled at enough for the way I drive these things now!" He also said he has called Polaris at least a dozen times on this and they have not done anything yet. He did mention that some units come in just fine, in fact some are too sensitive. All I can say is I couldn't be happier with the results and was told that this was a 1 time thing and should never need to be done again. Finally a dealer I have confidence in! :D

    Wow. I need to try this and see if I can get rid of some of the sponge in my brakes. Of course, I only do the speed limit, so I'm going to have to go see if I can find an Autobahn somewhere....

    I've heard that works.


    @ethermion and I have a great dealer that received a service or tech bulletin from Polaris for our mushy brake problems and when they got done, no more mushy brakes.


    In effect, they took off the brake calipers and opened the pistons all the way out, then all the way in. While I don't know for a fact, I suspect they had the bleeders opened at one point of this process.


    In addition, I added the Alpha brake master cylinder brace a couple of weekends ago and that's a must have. Open your hood, keep your eye on that master cylinder, and mash the brakes. You'll see it move quite a bit.

    Boating with the dolphins, US Navy '76-'84

    Having this done this weekend. that is the correct new process by Polaris. what is happening is the pistons are going too far back at rest so the first press of the brake pedal primes it and the pistons dont go all the way back to resting when you press the pedal again and get full braking power.

    I wanted to try the slam on the brakes fix but couldn't get a clearing behind me. I went to my dealer Ball Equipment in Richmond, MI and he said they could bleed the abs. I don't know why nobody has reported this before, but the bleeder valve is right in front of the Master cylinder. It made a big difference. He said to let it sit for a day as air probably mixed with oil on my ride up there. He said if I bleed them after it has sat, all the air would be at the top and will bleed out. I will be doing that and it's much safer, easier and thorough than mashing the brakes at speed. :)

    Quote from WOLF

    I wanted to try the slam on the brakes fix but couldn't get a clearing behind me. I went to my dealer Ball Equipment in Richmond, MI and he said they could bleed the abs. I don't know why nobody has reported this before, but the bleeder valve is right in front of the Master cylinder. It made a big difference. He said to let it sit for a day as air probably mixed with oil on my ride up there. He said if I bleed them after it has sat, all the air would be at the top and will bleed out. I will be doing that and it's much safer, easier and thorough than mashing the brakes at speed. :)

    This information was indeed posted on the dark side quite a while back. If I recall correctly, @Orangeman may have been the first to post about it & I also made a post about it later on...

    Slingshots: making children out of adults since 2014

    Found my post (dated 11/5/15; was on a DIY thread I had made for the FBM Master Cylinder Brace), & yep, it was @Orangeman as I had thanked him in the first part of the post. Here's a screenshot of the important parts of the post I made on The Dark Side:


    Slingshots: making children out of adults since 2014

    Edited once, last by Tripod ().