Soft Petal
 

2006 Camry LE
46k miles


New owner of an old Camry here. The brake petal is soft--there seems to be significant travel where not much braking occurs via petal-feel before there is meaningful positive feedback in the form of resistance.

Empirical-wise:
Fluid level is correct; No pending DTCs from the ABS controller; I haven't tried bleeding the system yet.

Research-wise:
No soft-petal specific TSB's (that I can find); Lots of "soft brake petal" posts in this forum and others with seemingly zero solutions.

All of this concerns me. This is my first Toyota. I'm worried that what I perceive as distractingly abnormal petal feel may be a characteristic of this year/make/model and a common complaint with a no remedy.

Anyone have experience with a known-good repair?

The car is known to have a soft pedal.

Before spending much time and money change the brake fluid.

Petal feel and travel improved noticeably after I replaced the shoes, snugged up the star wheel, and bled ~25oz of fresh DOT-4 through the system. The petal still isn't the degree of firmness I anticipated. There's more t'shooting I can do before I completely acquiesce; but methinks you might be correct.

This car 4-wheel disks or rear drums?