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Hi Guys!

I recently moved to the UAE for work, and I was offered a 2011 Ford F-150  with a 3.5L GTDI engine at a good price soon after arriving. However, when I bought the truck I noticed that all the brakes- discs and pads - on the front wheels were brand new, which I thought was a nice of the seller, giving me new brakes and all.

Nonetheless, on my first drive I noticed that the brakes don't work very well, and that I have to push really hard on the pedal to stop the truck. In the just more than two months I have had the truck, the brakes had gotten worse, and now I am afraid to drive it because of the huge effort involved in stopping it. The seller says it is not his problem, since I had damaged the brakes somehow. Several mechanics have trid to fix the brakes, but nobody has been able to identify the problem. At the moment, I cannot drive the truck because the brakes don't work.

Has anybody here had this problem on a F-150 truck? If so, what do I need to do to get the brakes to work?

Any advice and/or guidance will be appreciated.

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Can you tell what exactly happening of below two option:

  1. If pedal become spongy and depress all the way down to hold the brake and then barely able to brake OR
  2. Pedal response is fine, but brake is not holding as it use to like before with a slight touch of pedal.

For the 1st point, brake fluid must be low, try top up. Or brake booster is weak and need to flush the whole brake fluid and bleed the brake properly with certified DOT3/4 brake fluid.

For 2nd option change the brake pad with OEM ones, as previous owner must have changed pad to duplicate ones as he was about to sell the car and soon after few months those fake parts must be showing it's true color.

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Hi AdamRay,

@amitaj makes some good points, but with F-150 trucks of the 2011/2012 model years, the problem is more likely to involve the electric vacuum pump that supplies the brake system with vacuum assistance.

Diesel engines, such as the one you have in your truck cannot supply vacuum assistance to the brakes in the same way that petrol engines do, with vacuum drawn from the inlet manifold. Diesel vehicles have separate vacuum pumps- some are driven from the engine, but these particuar models have electric pumps that have a known problem with water entering the pump, thus causing corrosion.

The corrosion damages the pump, which results in poor vacuum assistance, which in turn causes long stopping distances because the brakes don't have sufficient vacuum assistance. The only fix for this problem is to replace the vacuum pump, but be sure to have the brake discs checked out for signs of overheating as well.

The poor vacuum assistance can cause the brakes to overheat because the brake force generated is not enough to stop the vehicle, but because the brakes are used for longer than normal, the overall time that the brakes are clamped are longer than would have been the case had the brakes worked properly.

 

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