How do you know if you have air in your brake lines on your 2000 Ford Taurus?

Answer 1

To start off, it is good to understand 2 things:

• Air is squishy - you can press on "air" in a container and it will compress, or squeeze down
  
  
• Brake fluid is not squishy - when you push on it, there's virtually no compression of the fluid.
  

So... The brake system lines are intended to have the very non-squishy brake fluid, so when you push the pedal, it immediately delivers the full forces to the brakes.

When there is air in the line and you step on the brakes, the pedal will feel soft, and gradually get harder the more you push - that's the air being compressed and slowly delivering the force to the brakes.

Very often, if you pump the pedal, apply more and more force to compressing the combination of air and brake fluids, the pedal will get 'hard' and stop 'higher' up.

Hopefully this makes sense, and helps people understand the critical need to "bleed" the air out of the brake system.

Nothing but 100% brake fluid is the only way to go... Er, ummm *stop* that is...

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