I'm not very impressed with the braking on my 07' 2.5i 5M Imp. The soft pedal isn't confidence inspiring in an emergency, even a slight one, and I noticed with the trans in neutral or clutch in, the brakes feel a lot stronger, though still too soft. I guess to control emissions the motor doesn't decel as fast as before emissions, to keep the mixture optimum, and not go rich, so the the motor is fighting the braking. I thought that was just a problem with carb cars, but I guess not. The last stick I owned had Great brakes, but was in the early emission days. The last 2 have been auto's with carbs, and the brakes felt good, and both had HDuty brakes and suspensions. I'm assuming the Sube suffers from the 2 stage vacuum booster, and maybe the mixture controlling. Anyway, it is good to be able to improve braking, without having to change the brakes, and I think that requires 17" rims. Might only have to change the booster, but that needs a different master cyl also.
I haven't driven the newer Imprezas, but my '02 WRX had good brake feel. Lousy ABS, but good otherwise.
I don't think I'd mess with _anything_ on a car that new before at least attempting to make it the dealers problem. Before you do that, tho, try this.
Find an empty parking lot, accelerate to ~30MPH, and stand on the brakes hard enough to get the ABS to activate. Did it? Do it again, and try swerving at the same time; if the ABS system is doin' it's thing you should be able to pretty much put the car where you want it.
Now reach under the dash and pull the ABS fuse. The ABS warning light should come on.
Try the brake thing again. You should be able to lock the wheels (you'll hear and feel it) without herculean pedal pressure, mushiness, steering pull, or other weirdness. Try it with your hands off the steering wheel. Stop straight?
If you try the swerve w/o ABS, you will either "push" the front end, or feel the rear start to come around (or both), neither of which is particularly hazardous (in an empty lot ;-), but it really doesn't tell you too much, either.
Anyway, if the car passes the above tests, the brakes are most likely OK, and the pedal "feel" is just different from what you are used to. If not, bitch to the dealership, and be prepared to demo your specific gripe from the above.
One thing you might try to improve brake grabbiness would be to install a set of "performance" pads; all four corners if you can afford it, but on the fronts at least. This will make significant difference in "feel", but has possible down sides of increased rotor wear, excess brake dust, and increased brake noise in general. Try Hawk, or EBC, and look for something listed for aggressive street/autocross applications.
Pad swap (especially on a new car, where you don't have to mess with anything else), is a real easy 5-10 minute per wheel DIY job on an Impreza. Jack it, pull the wheel, and remove the 8mm bolt (12mm wrench) from the caliper. (Don't mess with the large bolts holding the carrier to the hub.) Rotate the caliper off of the rotor (you'll see when you get that far), pop off the old pads, use a "C" clamp, or large Channel-loc pliers to compress the piston back into the caliper body, install the new pads, rotate the caliper back over the rotor, replace the bolt and reinstall the wheel. Step on the brake pedal a couple times 'til it firms up (to close the caliper on the rotor, and prevent brake fluid reservoir overflow) before moving to the next wheel.
Seriously, probably took me longer to type this than it does to do it.
Hope this proves helpful.
ByeBye! S.
Steve Jernigan KG0MB Laboratory Manager Microelectronics Research University of Colorado (719) 262-3101
I'd definately try this first. My experience with subarus is that their stopping power is perfectly normal, but the pedal feels a lot softer than many other cars (particularly recent-ish cars. I drove a '05 pontiac not long ago where the brakes felt like you were stepping on a rock. (I like the softer pedal myself. Feels like I have more control over exactly how much stopping power I apply)
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