Hey all, I drove a G8 and one of the things that really stood out was how squishy the brake feel is. I know the brakes work well, but is there any way to improve brake feel? I prefer a firm brake pedal to what the G8 has....

Thanks,

You may have to wait for the aftermarket to help out. Or possibly the following parts are available in Oz. Typically, brakes can be helped by using stainless steel brake hoses in place of the rubber sections. Also, flush the braking system. I know it sounds odd, but some GTO owners encountered the same problem. The factory fluid picks up some of the oil/grease from the production process of the master cylinder & other brake parts. Plus, when the GXP comes out, the clutch master cylinder should be flushed as well.

Hey all, I drove a G8 and one of the things that really stood out was how squishy the brake feel is. I know the brakes work well, but is there any way to improve brake feel? I prefer a firm brake pedal to what the G8 has....

Thanks,

I actually almost wrecked my car as I drove it off the lot. I was excited to see the power and to show it off to all the guys at the shop. Well someone cut me off and barelly made the stop.

Important reminder to everyone. Please make sure to break your car in before you do some thing stupid. By the second day they came on and started to work real good.

I'm not saying the car couldn't use a brake upgrade because it sure could. Just sayin the car might have just been too brand new.

Thanks
Mike Haddad

Thanks for the replies. Its not so much stopping, but feel. I'm used to more feedback from the brakes I guess - where you know when they are applied because the pedal gets hardr to push. On the G8 the pedal seems to keep going down even after the pads are engaged...

Good fix might be a gxp with brembos.

or brembos from the gxp in the gt.

My pedal is soft as well. It has to be pushed pretty far for braking. I'll bring this up to my dealer on my first oil change, Maybe they can check the pressure.

maybe some stainless braided lines will help? Just a thought and not a super expensive mod.

-Brian

The pedal feels fine to me...i dont plan on autocrossing this car....i think the stock brakes are better than 90 percent of the cars out there...( the 60 to 0 stop in magazines ive read is better than avg.)

Good fix might be a gxp with brembos.

or brembos from the gxp in the gt.

This will not help a soft pedal feel. Well, let me rephrase that, the only way this will help a soft pedal feel is forcing one to bleed the brakes (assuming the G8 isn't using some old Delphi calipers that flex more than a spring, yes I still have some on my Firehawk). Most likely, during the assembly process, not all the air was removed from the line during the filling process. If this is the case, a bleed will help tremendously. This may also work itself out as the air can sometimes break up and float to the reseviour. This is part of the reason for break-in, getting everything to settle and mate together.

My 04 GTO brakes were spongy. Dealer did a full bleed and it was like night and day.

My 04 GTO brakes were spongy. Dealer did a full bleed and it was like night and day.

This is what I was waiting to hear.

Mine feel very good. There is a little bit of travel in the brake pedal before the brakes start to bite, but from that point forward they seem solid and linear.

For whatever it is worth, when guys with GPs install the larger GP GXP brakes the larger calipers take more fluid displacement so the brakes feel a bit soft with longer travel. We discovered that the distance on the GXP between the brake lever pivot point and the attachment point for the rod to the master cylinder was greater than that distance on the non-GXP GP. Some guys replaced the lever with the GXP unit (cheap but about a 3-4 hour job) and others modified (drilled/welded) the lever to lower the attachment point for the rod. Either way, you get less mechanical advantage so the "feel" is firmer and you get more displacement for a give movement of the lever. If bleeding, etc. doesn't improve the brake feel on the G8, this might be something we want to look into.

I must not be sensitive to this. My brakes have some travel in them and are not really hard to press. But, just about as soon as I push down just a little they start to work.

I think it is more as case of like better feedback. Less mechanical advantage lets you feel more of what is going on and, I think, allows better control.

yea, i am not impressed with the brake pedal feel. certainly stops fine, but not until the pedal is pretty low it seems. I've been trying to figure out the correct sequence for bleeding brakes on a G8.

Coming from my CTS-V these brakes feel soft and have a soft pedal feel with much more travel to make them work. I complained before I even took the car home. Had the service dept. even check them but they said thats how they are. So maybe when I go in for the first oil change I'll have them bleed the brakes and try that.

Does the GXP have the same brake feel or is it better?

I haven't noticed an issue on mine, even compared to my former BMW.