Ok, I had some brake troubles before and now I think I have air in the lines, and its leaking somewhere. I took it to pep boys, because I wasn't sure where it might be leaking from, or if it was leaking at all. Anyways, they say its the master cylinder, and when they talked to me they said they called the dealership up to get a price est. Right when they said that I just thought to myself $$$$. I checked on mazdatrix because they have lots of stock parts prices and such and I wanted to get a ballpark range. $161.73 to buy brand new. Basically, i'm thinking to myself, **** this, i'm a high school student, my money needs to go towards better things. Anyways, would a used one be hard to install? Also, are older ones not reliable or anything? I keep getting set back on doing my mods because of all this tiny crap that keeps happening and its pissing me off.

 

you could buy a rebuild kit & do it yourself, but if the internals of the master cyl are scratched, corroded, etc.., it's not gonna last long. Mazdatrix has the rebuild kit, also might be able to find one at your local auto parts place. make sure you bleed the entire sys real good once you fix it

 

Think safety...Do you want your brakes to stop working because you installed a used MC on your car just to save some money...I know your position, money is hard to comeby...Just part with the money and get a new or rebuilt MC on your car...As the saying goes, "Better safe than sorry!"

 

well, the car is really old.... If you drive a car this old, you have to expect those wears, and fix them with the proper parts accordingly. I recommend not cheaping out on used ones- it is cheaper to get a new one in the long run, instead of risking brake failure again. Brakes are the most important part of the car too- so I really dont recommend cheaping out.
Its part of an FC-life.
Shin

 

How easy is the rebuild kit? Whats involved and what does it come with?

 

Check out www.nopionline.com Master Cylinders from Tokico for around $70-$80. It will take about a week to get there, but the price is right, and the quality is good. If you place an order, be sure to do it by phone and get the order number(so you can keep track of it). Good luck.

Steve

 

I don't have a week to wait for one . Its my daily driver, so no can do on waiting for parts. I might have to suck it up and pay the dealership price . How much do you guys think the dealership would charge for this? Is there any other kind of option I have that I could buy locally so I don't have to wait on shipping? Shipping downtime is the biggest killer here.

 

Also, one more thing, i'd like to see what you guys think of this. Basically, the brake fluid light came on a while ago, and I thought it was just the emergency brake line being pinched or something disrupting the signal. The day after I found out about the fact that the light is also for brake fluid levels, I started having the problem where the brake pedal was extremely easy to push in, and the brakes only were effective when it was pushed in all the way and I was making hard contact with it. I checked under the hood and the brake fluid level was VERY low. I filled it back up, but nothing changed. I assumed I just had air in the lines, and maybe the brake fluid reservoir was leaking somewhere. I think theres just air in there, and they might be telling me its the master cyl because they dont know, or maybe the master cyl is whats leaking. If it is the master cyl. leaking, then it is leaking VERY slowly. If say that was the problem, could I perhaps just have them bleed the brake lines, get them filled back up only with fluid, then maybe just keep filling up the reservoir until I got a cheaper part shipped to me? I'm not sure exactly how the whole brake system works, so let me know what you guys think, because if its just a leak somewhere else, I don't want to be paying $160 for this crap to be fixed.

 

rebuilding it is not hard, there are not many pieces and realy all it consists of is replacing a couple seals to hold pressure

 

rebuild kits aren't hard- just pay attention to what & in what order all the old seals are in when you disassemble the master cyl...you got a Haines manual or FSM?