That sounds likely Solman..

 

Electric Vacuum pumps are no picnic, either. FCA is having tons of warranty with them. The rotors are graphite. They crack if dropped. Plant handling is an issue, but the big one is that small vac leaks leave the plant as ok, but the electric vac pump burns up (such a martyr) trying to compensate for a leak - that was never detected in production.

Where is that Edison guy when you REALLY need him? They are probably 5x more problematic than mechanical pumps. Fact.

 

Isn't it kind of scary that even now, in 2018/2019 they still can't get the car making thing right? I have a 2018 Hyundai Elantra and a 2018 VW Golf Sportwagen and aside from the shifts in the Elantra being smoother those two cars and my HHR drive nearly identical to each other. Hasn't been much improvement or progress in car manufacturing in the past couple decades, just more fancy stuff on the inside and cheaper stuff under the hood. People would rather have Apple Car Play and a touch screen than a car the can make it more than 50,000 miles without an issue.

 

Remember the brake problem for the HHRs back in 2009 or 10. The pump was the problem with many. No pressure at start up = no brakes.

 

That was only SS automatic, the solution was adding the vacuum pump because of no brake BOOST at startup not no brakes.

This is a completely different thing.

 

You started your car and there were no brakes because the pump needed time to pressurize. Usually a remote start and allow idling to normalize gave the pump time to boost. If you didn't, you could end up backing into the street and not stop.

 

Regulations are driving this stuff. If we didn't have the EPA jacking up the FE standards every year, there could be plenty of vacuum to scavenge from the manifold still. Squeezing every drop out of ICEs means you tweak on the margins more than ever. Stop/start technology is probably the biggest culprit. It has changed the availability of engine vacuum for the worse.

The stronger hybrids are using electric brake boosters that are a combo booster/master cylinder because vacuum availability is not constant in electric mode. They are expensive, but they do solve the booster pump issues.

FCA's pumps supply only about 30% of the vacuum, so customers don't even notice a failure except for a dash light. GM's system is likely the same with the mechanical pumps, BUT when the pumps ingest engine oil and it gets into the booster, you then get leaks, hard pedal, and braking capability loss. That's why there was a recall.

And, yeah, this stuff got complicated in recent years...