[bsisco]

My wife and I just purchased an '07 Outlook on April 2nd. It only had ~50k miles on it. Two months to the day after we got it the "stabilitrak off" indicator light came on and the DIC said "service brake system" with the audible "chime" alarm. I checked the brake fluid and noted that there was only about .5 inches in the bottom of the reservoir. I added DOT3 to the fill line and called my dealership to schedule an appointment to get it looked at. I decided to do some research and found some articles (one of which was on this site) about the master cylinder leaking into the brake booster.

I asked the dealership to check the booster pressure sensor but instead they said that I needed pads and rotors the tune of $697.00. That was about 1.5 months ago and I'm still losing brake fluid somewhere. There are no visible leaks and no "burning hydraulic fluid" smell anywhere in/on the vehicle, and the pads appear to have at least half of their thickness left. The vehicle is currently back at the dealership for the same issue and they are still telling me it's the pads and rotors, but that just seems like a lot of brake fluid (in the three plus months I've owned this vehicle, I've gone through almost an entire reservoir of fluid). My questions are:

• Could this much brake fluid loss be due strictly to bad pads/rotors or could it still be the Master Cylinder/Booster?
• It seems that there are a lot of posts online about this "Issue", is this something GM is aware of and are there any plans for a Recall?

Also, I checked my warranty on the Saturn owner's site and it said that I have powertrain warranty left until 12/21/12.

 

[bsisco]

my thoughts exactly...

 

[bsisco]

**UPDATE**
So, I talked to the Service Manager last night and he was trying to tell me that it was the pads and rotors..again..however, I finally convinced him to pull the Booster Pressure Sensor and check for fluid and call me back. Well about ~2-3 hours later he calls me back and says "I guess I'm going to have to eat a little crow..." and goes on to tell me how he had a tech pull the sensor out and, lo and behold, there was brake fluid where there shouldn't be any (imagine that). He said that this is the first time in his 20 years that he has ever seen this on any GM vehicle. I told him about the (many) posts on the interwebz regarding this issue and he said he'd definitely be checking this on vehicles with similar symptoms from now on...He also said that they had the parts ordered and should be able to get it fixed today.

I'm hoping that since we've only had this vehicle for ~3 months (not even 3k miles yet, and it was only 2 months when the issue started) that the dealership will cover it if it's not under powertrain warranty :|

On that note about the PT warranty, aren't master cylinders/boosters kind of essential to the operation of the vehicle? shouldn't those be covered? (also, aren't master cylinders a "lubricated part" which would fall under the explanation(s) i've seen for PT warranty?)

TL;DR Got the Dealership Service Manager to check what he should've checked in the first place...turns out I was right all along :banghead:

would appreciate it if someone from GM Service could give me some insight on this.

 

[bsisco]

So I went to the dealership last night to pick up our vehicle. I walked in and was talking to my salesman for a bit. He hands me the paperwork and tells me that they (the dealership) are going to stand behind the vehicle and that they replaced the master cylinder and booster as well as gave me new pads and rotors as a 'goodwill' measure for customer satisfaction. I must say that I didn't expect this at all and am very pleased with the service. I expected to have to try and negotiate with them at least a little bit on labor or something. :cheers: