Need Help on brake problem - Urgent! (archive)

OK, so I'm trying to get out of San Francisco before rush hour, along with half the city on a Friday afternoon. Some idiot cuts me off and I have to dive on the brakes... When I hit the binders hard, the pedal hardly travelled an inch, the brakes felt like they weren't grabbing as hard, and I had to apply a LOT of force to stop before rear-ending this shmuck in a Pontiac.

When applied steadily, and as I normally would, they work just fine. I am able to repeat this after driving at a speed roughly above 40 MPH and then jamming on the brakes. 1 out of 3 times it feels that same way (hard but not grabbing).

Am I losing my hydraulic power assist? Anyone with a clue here? There's no error fault indicated on the dash or OBC. I've made an appointment with my mechanic for next week, but I'd like to take a look around this weekend. As I'm always somewhat paranoid about brake work (after all, that's the ONLY part of the car that HAS to work, if you don't want to be killed on the freeway!), I'd like some ideas before I dive in. Note that I still have that "click" every 20 seconds when the brakes are depressed that I posted on last month or so. Your best replies had to do with the recirculation valve in the hydraulic circuit. So, if my valve is going bad, would I see the same symptoms?

Any help is much appreciated.
TIA,
Stan C.

Follow Ups:

It's the accumulator. Phil M. 07:28 9/30/2000 (1)
- Re: It's the accumulator. Kurt.G 14:12 9/30/2000 (0)
Re: Need Help on brake problem - Urgent! Loren 02:17 9/30/2000 (1)
- Re: Need Help on brake problem - Urgent! Kurt.G 02:28 9/30/2000 (0)

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