Spent $300 on a 'professional' brake bleed and they still felt spongy

Last month I took my 2012 F-150 to a chain shop in Nashville for a brake fluid flush. They charged me $300 and said it was a full system bleed with a machine. Drove it home and the pedal still sank halfway to the floor. Took it back twice and they just shrugged and said it was normal for older trucks. Finally did it myself in my driveway with a $12 vacuum pump kit from Amazon. Fixed the problem in 30 minutes and the pedal is solid now. That shop clearly just did a quick gravity drain and called it good. Has anyone else had a shop lie about a brake service like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

olivia_webb1mo agoMost Upvoted

That shop in Nashville I took my 2011 Civic to last year pulled the same thing, charged me $250 for a brake fluid flush and the pedal still felt mushy. Used to think those big chain places knew what they were doing, but now I just buy a $15 one-way bleeder kit and do it myself in the driveway. Your story makes me wonder how many shops are just doing a quick drain and calling it a full service.

patriciamoore1mo ago

That shop probably did exactly what they said they did. Your truck is 12 years old with over 100k miles I bet, and older F-150s are known for having bad master cylinders that feel spongy no matter how many times you bleed them. A professional machine bleed gets out ALL the air, but it can't fix a worn out master cylinder that's bypassing fluid internally. Your $12 vacuum pump might have given you a false sense of a fix if you didn't actually get all the old fluid out and just pushed a little air pocket down the line. Maybe the real problem is a $150 master cylinder replacement, not a $300 service.