Close call with the festiva tonight..

[Oren09]

Had one myself tonight...
Couple of does (where are all the bucks..? hunting season wipe them out?) run across the road in front of me. Had to brake hard and swerve, barely missing one. Luckily I was only going 40 or so.

[Festiva_Fred]

Had one myself tonight...
Couple of does (where are all the bucks..? hunting season wipe them out?) run across the road in front of me. Had to brake hard and swerve, barely missing one. Luckily I was only going 40 or so.

Glad you missed them, I was going around 50 or so.

[Damkid]

How are the stock brakes?
My Festy has power brakes (brake booster and vacuum hose running to engine) but they feel like regular brakes- requires a good amount of pushing on the pedal, and doesn't really stop faster if you push harder. I've had to use engine braking a couple of times because I'm used to the excellent brakes on my truck...
Are stock festy brakes this weak, or are my pads/rotors/drums bad? The car doesn't pull or shake when braking.

If you installed aspire brakes, you'd say the stock brakes are crap :lol:

[blkfordsedan]

How are the stock brakes?
My Festy has power brakes (brake booster and vacuum hose running to engine) but they feel like regular brakes- requires a good amount of pushing on the pedal, and doesn't really stop faster if you push harder. I've had to use engine braking a couple of times because I'm used to the excellent brakes on my truck...
Are stock festy brakes this weak, or are my pads/rotors/drums bad? The car doesn't pull or shake when braking.

The stock brakes will never have the braking power of a newer vehicle with 4-wheel discs, but they are perfectly adequate for normal driving situations.
If they feel weaker than you think they should, I would bleed them and check the rear shoes. It uses the parking brake cables to adjust the rear shoes (not backing up like most cars do). The lever arm ratchet set-up inside the rear drums has a habit of getting rusty and seizing up, rendering the rear brakes ineffective. Mine did that after sitting for a year. I took it apart, broke everything loose, lubricated and reinstalled w/new shoes. I also put new pads up front and bled the system.Now it stops as well as most other older cars with disc/drum brakes. If you want brakes that are on par with the best, do the Aspire swap.