ok, weird title i know - no doubt there is a technical term for this!

anyways, you know if you turn the engine off, and hit the break pedal quite a few times, the pedal 'stiffens' so there is no more play left in it (something to do with brake fluid?)

well, my Diesel vRS seems to do this when left over night... i park ever so slightly in front of the missus on a very slight incline so my (bad) driving habbit is to jump in my car, press the brake pedal, start engine / release handbrake and then lift off

problem is, the brake feels like it's already been pumped to death so until the engine is switched on, its just stiff --- no other car i've had has done this, so was just wondering why it does it?

god this post sounds daft... hope i can get some serious responses to my rediculous question!

Check the vacuum lines carefully, I remember hearing about this before and a T joining some hoses was found ruptured.

First off, the weighting up of the pedal is nothing to do with the brake fluid. It's caused by you exhausting the vacumn in the brake servo, so that you are applying pressure directly to the brakes, without the assistance of the servo unit.

That said, I'd agree with sebulbus, that if the vacumn's leaking down in as little as 16 hours you must have a small leak somewhere.

thanks guys --- sorry, i'm not too clever understanding this new fangled modern machinery

can i also ask what my chances of death are if i don't get this looked at quickly? (i do 80 miles per day) or is it trivial / inconveniance

again... apologies for not understanding the in's and out's!

if its just a little leak then its not going to kill you tomorrow but if theres a leak there nothing to stop it suddenly turning into a large leak while your driving. the brakes wouldn't fail but you could loose all your power assistance

Well, I'd want it looked at soon, because worst case is that the vacumn pipe blows when you're attempting an emergency stop on a motorway, and staring down the @r$e end of the world's biggest and hardest truck!

I'd also take the car to a "local garage" that employs proper C&G qualified mechanics rather than a dealership with "vehicle techicians" (a proper mechanic will be able to do diagnostics and probably actually find the leak) unless it's still under warranty, in which case take it back to them and say that you have a brake vacumn leak.

cheers guys

that's the answer i expected....! having brakes that are a bit '****y' are never a good thing!

was bought new (sept '08) so i'll get it taken back to one of those 'technician' fella's...!

edit: wow, it's a while since i've posted here but I only used the word used by 'Leclair' (?) in 'Hello Hello' in reference to his ****y ticker (in case you thought I had tourettes or something)