I bought a 99 Grand Caravan from another person. She said she had no problems with the brakes until she bought another vehicle and stopped using it. Now the brakes don't work very well. She said she thought there was a hole in the line. We put brake fluid in it. Master cylinder is still full, after we drove it home which was a 2 hour drive. From experience it feels like there is air in the brake lines. I haven't taken it to a mechanic yet, but wanted to know what others think.

The brakes when pumped work somewhat, you start to feel it is working ok, then you try to brake and there is none, you pump and get some, other times you have to use the emergency brake to stop.

 

could have air in the system, could have a master cylinder going bad. i think there is a good write up in here about bleeding the brakes, I'd try that first.

 

your really going to have to get al lil dirty.
Jack it up and inspect the lines
remove the drums if equipped and see if they are soaked
check the operation of the calipers
bleed the system(start at furthest element from the master)

then if they are still crappy start looking at the master/booster

 

Thanks guys, I talked to Auto Zone too and they told me it would be really easy for my husband to bleed the brakes, however, my husband just does not want to do it, and we do not really have the extra money if it isn't just that. I am disabled so I can't do it, but I may look at several sites and teach him to do it and see what results we get.