2004 Toyota Camry: soft or spongy brake pedal

Filed Feb 10, 2010 · Brakes · 50,000 miles · FL

This complaint deals with all toyota cars with rear wheel drum brakes. On my car and many others possibly the pedal is soft has to go down quite a ways to activate brakes. On several occasions although I drive conservatively I feel my braking was compromised when I need quick braking response. I believe the reason is the automatic adjustment mechanism on my rear brakes was and is not working. This mechanism on all modern cars with rear drum brakes adjusts for wear by bringing the brake shoes closer to the drum when backing and braking. An automatic adjustment. When the mechanism isn't working the rear brake shoes get farther and farther from the drum due to wear and one must push the brake pedal farther and farther down on braking to get the shoes to contact the drums before braking can begin. This delays the braking time of the driver considerably. Recently getting new tires the mechanic noted my soft brake pedal and removed the rear brake drums and manually adjusted the shoes to bring them in light contact with the drum. My brake pedal got hard again and activated at the top. Toyota should bring the cars in to check this lack of adjustment problem as I wouldn't doubt there have been accidents because of it. With the new cars with disk brakes the pads are always against the disk and the is no soft pedal problem.

Filed May 15, 2008 · Airbags, Brakes · 50,000 miles · TX · crash · 3 injuries

I bought a 2004 camry about a month ago from my local toyota used car dealer. A week later I told them front-end felt funny and needed to be checked. They said I needed an alignment. Had that done. Called them last week and said I still feel like there's some sort of front-end problem. My brake pedal is spongy and almost to the ground. Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm going to stop in time. Also told them my steering wheel was shimmying. I was told that the steering wheel was probably indicating a tire balance issue and they would charge me $50 to balance/rotate my tires. I decided to put the money toward new front tires instead hoping that would also reduce road noise. As for the brakes.... I was told that was standard for the camry models and was a known design issue but no corrections were in place that they were aware of. Last weekend I was in a crash. My brakes failed! My ABS did not engage and my airbag did not deploy. I was traveling about 30-40 MPH on a highway when the person in front hit their brakes. I hit mine and continued to skid into the back of their vehicle. I had plenty of room to stop. There's no reason other than brake failure for me to have crashed.

Filed Apr 9, 2008 · Brakes · MA

2004 toyota camry, has had spongy brakes from new, dealer said this was normal. The problem has gotten worse, and if you pump the brakes and hold them you go right to the floor. If you are stopping slowly the brakes respond very poorly.

Filed Aug 9, 2006 · Brakes · NY

2004 toyota camry brakes spongy. *kb the consumer felt that the brake were spongy since the date of purchase. The dealer indicated that this is a characteristic of the vehicle. The brake pedal travels 3" bringing the pedal to within 1" of the floor.

Filed Jan 14, 2005 · Brakes · 15,000 miles · NY

The consumer went through a red light due to faulty brakes. *tc the brakes were spongy and were fading and or diminishing. *sc

Filed Dec 11, 2004 · Airbags, Brakes · GA · crash · 1 injury

Approaching intersection the stop light changed and attempting to stop vehicle, the brake pedal went to floorboard, but did not stop vehicle before impact with another vehicle. Speed at impact was approx. 20 MPH and neither airbag deployed. Just recently had vehicle at dealership to have soft brake pedal checked, and was told of other complaints concerning same problem.