Hi All,

Planning to strip down and rebuild the callipers on my BWM (2012 3 series) in a couple of weeks.

Normally I use a gunson eazy bleed to bleed the brakes as it's so much easier, but somebody told me the other day that you shouldn't do this on car with ABS. I've done it on cars with ABS in the past, but is there any reason I shouldn't? He didn't elaborate much further.

Thought I would ask the collectives opinion!

Cheers!

Sealey do a kit that has a QD hose for air and a valve to control flow. VS0205. Not sure if they still make it but I for one prefer it to the Gunson.

No idea on the bloody mindless wonder, BUT I do pressure bleed SWMBO's Corsa 1.8 (ABS, 2004 vintage). Quite often too, fair bit of seized hydraulicness going on, corrosion and outright damage.
I'm on my own, so I have no option, out comes the Gunson's bottle, spare wheel and DoT4.

Some cars need a fairly lengthy session with an attached computer to open and close various things to get the fluid through. I would expect BMW to be one of the worst, but I have no basis for that assumption.

Have a nose around for comprehensive OBD kits, I have one for the Renault that that controls the brakes for me via the ABS, and allow me to 1 man bleed without messing with spare tyre etc.

Hi,

I've got a 2009 535d and have the task of brake fluid replacement to look forward to soon. Don't ask me where I read this but I'm 99% sure that, while researching the job, I came across something which said it was okay to pressure bleed my car (5 series mind) as long as the pressure was kept below a certain figure. I also remember thinking that the pressure specified was lower than I have used in the past with simpler vehicles (typically up to 40psi)

I also have the BMW technical reference software on an old windows laptop which takes ages to boot up but if you are stuck I can try to dig out the details from there. That might have been where I read about the pressure bleeding thing.

Sorry to be a bit vague on the details but my recollection is definitely that no special ECU manipulation is required and a pressure bleed system at low pressure was fine. Again, that's on the 5 series but there's a good chance they will be similar.

Useful article here perhaps: http://www.pelicanparts.com/BMW/techarticles/Mult-Bleeding_Brakes/Mult-Bleeding_Brakes.htm

Cheers,
Craig.

[Edited on 14/1/2017 by craig1410]

I once had a 335i of the 2007 vintage. The abs pump packed up at one point and all the 'experts' and research pointed me towards a specialist as the computer was required to activate the internal mech/pumps/valves etc to allow a sucessfull bleed.

One guy recommended bleeding as much as possible then taking the car to a gravel road to 'activate the abs a few times' then bleed again... repeat until complete.

I gave it to an independent specialist and gave him some money.