Mazda 3 brake pressure, energy, click sound

[grandeson]

I just noticed something on my '08 mazda3 HB sport. If I depress the brake pedal all the way to the floor, at the very bottom i hear a little click, then the brake pedal has pretty much no pressure, until the brake is almost totally released, then the pressure comes back. But, if you dont let the pedal release most of the way, the brakes are still engaged and the pedal needs very little pressure to keep brakes engaged. Also, I should note, if I dont depress the pedal all the way to the floor and hear the little click sound, the brakes function normally. I am not sure what this is, and havent had much luck online finding out info on it. Best I can think is the following:
I've read something about brake pedal energy absorbing on the Mazda. If this is the case, it actually is very handy in an instance when you are stuck at a traffic light. You know, sometimes when waiting at a light your foot gets a little tired from keeping the pressure on the brake. With what I have above, if I get to the light, I press on the brake all the way down and it takes next to nothing to keep the brake applied. Then when the light changes to green, simply release the brake pedal and everything is normal again. I should add that towards the very top of release, the pressure comes back so you can ease off the brake so the car just doesn't jump forward.
If I am right, then this is a pretty ingenious idea, if not, can anyone tell me what the hell is going on? I would be super grateful if one or two fo you guys can made just go in your car and hit the brake in park to see if it does this (with car on). I did just get the tires replaced yesterday and wondering if the shop did anything by mistake or tried to get cute and hope I would go back to them for a brake job. I look forward to hearing from you guys, and apologize in advance for posting this elsewhere as well. Regards, Grandeson

 

[superdoughboy4]

Been meaning to reply to this. did it on accident, but yeah. It happens to my 3 also.

 

[g099521]

Happening on my Mazda5... Already replaced the brake master cylinder and read/did all of the other obvious things (new pads, bled-ALOT)... Still same issue and have also read where folks replaced their brake boosters and still have the issue. Do not want to keep throwing parts at, and guessing at the fix. Have ya'll resolved/fixed your brake issue?

 

[flatlander937]

Yeah... it's not a problem... every single MZ3 does it, including my 09 w/ 36k miles. I've worked on several MZ3s at work and I haven't found one that HASN'T done it yet.

I didn't know about the energy absorbing brake pedal(more specifically... what the heck to search for), but based on that I found the patent for the technology... it seems like the "dead feeling" in the pedal might be happening after you press the pedal, it pushes the pushrod, then after that it starts pushing the lever around(the click noise)... and until you release it all the way, you're just moving the lever back and forth which would explain the lack of effort.

http://www.google.com/patents?id=zp...=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

No idea if that's true at all, I'll have to take a closer look at my brake pedal some time, but until I stick my head under there, seems like that might just make sense based on limited knowledge.