I searched but couldn't find much information or any symptoms like I experienced tonight.
Well I have a 2009 maxima S with less than 10,000 miles always maintained and serviced as Nissans specs.Tonight after a short trip to the store I came to stop light and the car as always,stopped good.
After 30 seconds sitting at the light, the brake felt spongy and definately was bottoming out and the car started to lurch forward.I put it in neutral and reapplied the brakes and all was good,the pressure on the brake was back and felt good and most importantly the car stopped.
I saw a few posts about the booster issue and was just wondering if anyone else has ever experienced such a problem like I encountered?
Will have to book an appointment at the dealership as now I don't feel safe at all having my family in this car till I know why this happened.

 

I'm not a brake system expert, but the first thing I would check is the brake fluid level. Make sure it is at the FULL mark.

Unless you do all local stop-and-go driving, your brake pads should be fine at 10K miles.

The symptoms might also indicate a possible problem with the master cylinder or a fluid leak somewhere.

The important thing is that you are not taking this lightly, and already have a dealer appointment. Please let us know what he finds.

 

Well I was in Nissan today and explained my cars problem,Saturdays are super busy for them but they squeezed me in shortly after I called.

They inspected the entire braking system front to rear and could find no problems at all.They test drove it a few times and could not duplicate the problem.

I wish they had found a problem as now this is unexplained as to why this happened or what caused it.I drove it for a good long drive after with lots of starting and stopping and so far,it performs normal as before the hiccup.

I guess at least it's documented now and if I get into a crash because of lack of brakes...I will be not happy but maybe a lot richer.

 

I wish I were a brake expert, and could think through this problem, but I have never worked on brakes.

The fact the system performed perfectly in subsequent tests would seem to hint that on that one time, the brake fluid might have somehow gotten around whatever is supposed to push the fluid from the master cylinder to the brake pistons at the wheels, whereupon it ran back into the brake fluid reservoir, because you are clearly not LOSING brake fluid.

Maybe there is a piece of sediment in the fluid that, in this one instance, somehow lodged at just the right place to prevent something from closing completely, allowing the fluid to seep back into the fluid reservoir.

But who knows? These one-time irregularities which can't be duplicated by the dealer can be almost impossible to find.

 

This does NOT sound like a booster issue, but more of a Master Cylinder Issue as Light describes above, as the pressure is leaking out. I urge you to take it somewhere else. With the car lurching forward at a stop signal after a period of time, it is NOT SAFE. In the interim, if you MUST drive that car, please put it in neutral at the stop light and be prepared to use the emergency brake. None of us here on the boards like to see or hear of smashed fenders or worse.

 

I agree with the master cylinder diagnosis. It is not unheard of for this to be intermittent.

I'm no mechanic, and I didn't sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I have had this problem on other cars. When it happens (losing pedal pressure), a couple of quick pumps will usually restore pressure. Not sure if it relocates an o-ring or what.

If it happens again, I would seriously consider just having them replace the MC.

 

This is interesting in that every time I get in my car to start it, I automatically push the brake pedal twice instead of once, as the second push seems to meet a very slightly firmer resistance than the first push, and I like that very slightly firmer resistance.

This also falls in line with what grizzdad just posted.

This pushing the pedal twice goes further back in my driving life than I can remember. I'm sure some of those vehicles I drove back in the middle of the 1900s had less-than-perfect brakes. Of course my earlier vehicles (including my beloved '49 Studebaker) did not have power brakes, and considerable force was required to stop quickly from speed.

I dare say there are millions of drivers on the road today who would be physically incapable of stopping one of today's cars if the power brakes suddenly quit working. It takes a tremendous amount of pedal pressure.

In the meantime, I would follow LtLeary's advice and not ignore this problem. I think I would go to a fairly empty parking lot where there is a slope near the back of the lot and stop facing down the slope, then hold my foot on the pedal for several minutes with the car in drive.

I would repeat this several times, and if the situation occurred again, I would immediately head to a dealer or a brake shop I thought I could trust. If we have to address this by just replacing things until the problem disappears, I agree with others here that the master cylinder would probably be the best place to start.

 

I agree master cylinder. I had a similar problem with my Subaru Impreza. The only difference is I ran into the back of a car. I was told a full master cylinder failure should never happen but it did.