On my 96 Legacy LSI Wagon my brakes are rock solid, very responsive having no issues with them. However on my 97 OBW the brake pedal seems to be very soft compared to the 96 Legacy and really not as responsive i.e taking longer to stop or having to hit the pedal harder. Both cars have fairly new pads, as I had a shop change them both relatively at the same time, so I do not think it is the pads. Do you guys have any suggestions why the barke pedal feels soo different on these tow cars? If it matters my Legacy just hit 100k and my OBW just hit 179k. Any ideas are appreciated thanks!!

The first thing would be to bleed the brakes.

I know that the Outback has a 2 stage booster that causes some of that mushy feel. I'm not sure what your Legacy has, but I would think that it would be the same.

 

I added some stainless steel braided brake lines to my 97 OB. It helped considerably in reducing that mushy feel.

 

Commuter

Yes, start by having a look under the hood. Maybe the Legacy has a circular brake fluid reservoir on top a single stage booster.

 

The Outback is just new enough to have the square reservoir, on top of two-staged booster???

 

Second on has much softer pedal feel. IF they are the same, I second the idea above about bleeding the brakes.

Subaru does not use dual/2 stage boosters. They are tandem diaphragm boosters.

 

Pretty much all legacies/outbacks that I know of got tandem diaphragm boosters. Only the early gen base imprezas got single diaphragm boosters.

 

However, there are different size tandem diaphragm boosters. If the outback has larger diaphragms, then it will provide more assist then the smaller diaphragms.

 

I took apart a tandem booster. Here are some of the pics. I've also labeled certain parts

 

http://www.main.experiencetherave.com:8080/subaru/images/brakebooster/

http://www.main.experiencetherave.com:8080/subaru/images/brakebooster2