I recently failed my NJ inspection because my front brakes are working much more than my rear brakes. I went ahead and bled each of the calipers with a mityvac today, but haven't yet gone back for another inspection.
My question is: Is there anything else that could be causing this problem?

What car are you driving?

Last night I was out with my W123, and I locked up the rear brakes. I wonder why that is because I have 195/65/15 and factory is 205/70/14...

I didnt know that they checked your balance of your brakes. Usually you want 60-80% power to the front and 40%-20% to the rear. Your front brakes do most of the work

Austin

__________________
Current Stable:
1994 S500 v140, 210k miles, white with grey.

Former Mercedes in the Stable:
1983 300CD Turbo diesel 515k mi sold (rumor has it, that it has 750k miles on it now)
1984 300CD Turbo Diesel 150 k mi sold
1982 300D Turbo Diesel 225 sold
1987 300D Turbo Diesel 255k mi sold
1988 300 CE AMG Hammer 15k mi sold
1986 "300E" Amg Hammer 88k mi sold (it was really a 200, not even an E (124.020)
1992 500E 156k mi sold
etc.

Just a guess, but maybe you have good OEM pads up front and some cheap pads in the rear that have a lower coefficient of friction and thus less braking? What car do you have?

I didn't know they they checked these things at inspection.

__________________
Ali Al-Chalabi

2001 CLK55
1999 Dodge Ram 2500 Cummins Diesel
2002 Harley-Davidson Fatboy
Merlin Extralight w/ Campy Record

The car that failed is a 1971 220D (W115). NJ has a pretty strict inspection.

I don't remember whether the pads were oem or not, but that's a good point and something that I will check if I fail again. I'll be bringing it back in for reinspection next week, so I'll post what happened.

I don"t know about now, but years ago NJ had state inspection
facilities with skid pads on the inspection line (sort of like a
assembly line, each station checked certain specs ) I had a
car fail for brake balance once, took it to a different inspection
station the next day, it passed OK. Go figure.

__________________
Thanks,
Mike

'83 300D
'87 Volvo DL Wagon
'88 420SEL (SOLD)
'98 Toyota Camry SE V6
'96 Ford Brono XLT
'94 Mercury Villager
'46 Willy's CJ2A
'40 Packard 110 4DSD

"Just another squirrel, trying to get a nut"