Q: Parking brake light on. after changing rear pads, calipers, rotors. Bled brakes.

asked by on January 24, 2017

Just changed rear pads, calipers, rotors. Reason for this is left got hotter than a fire cracker. Parking brake light was not on before. Now it is. I do not use parking brake. Bled brakes with car off. Did again with car running, light still on. Do I still have air in system. Fluid good and level full.

My car has 80542 miles.
My car has an automatic transmission.

Hello. There may very well be an air pocket left in your line that needs to be bled out. One efficient way to tell if there’s air in your system is pressing the brake pedal with the engine running, the brake pedal should only go down 30 to 40% of the way. If it goes down anymore you likely have air in your line. I suggest that you use the bleeding procedure we have here https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/-how-to-bleed-car-brakes-by-jerel-lawrence to help you properly bleed your brakes. Bleeding the brakes usually requires beginning bleeding at the wheel farthest away from the master cylinder, then bleed the second farthest away and so on. There’s likely air trapped in your brake lines that’s causing master cylinder to have a pressure imbalance inside of it . Oftentimes this pressure imbalance will create a suction in your brake system and cause your brakes to self engage. So that could also be why your parking brake light is lit. You also need to have your parking brake shoes adjusted since the rotors were installed. Improperly adjusted shoes could cause the parking brake light to set as well as an improperly adjusted parking brake cable. Step 9 in this article can help you adjust the shoes https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/how-to-replace-rear-car-brake-shoes-by-mia-bevacqua . Here is another easy to follow article that could help you adjust your cable https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/how-to-adjust-a-parking-brake-cable-by-spencer-clayton. Please keep in mind that not only do we offer online help we offer mobile repair and assistance, which can be scheduled here https://www.yourmechanic.com

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