messecar

Got to a stop sign and tried to stop, but the brakes did not work and ended up in the middle of the intersection. Happened so fast don't know if brake pedal was all the way to the floor or not. Next stop sign, car stopped without problems. Third stop sign, brakes failed again. Drove the car up and down a street, but could not make the brakes fail again. No longer trust this car. Any ideas as to what caused this?

maineman

That's scary!!!
The second time they failed did the pedal go all the way to the floor???

dtompsett

-bad master cylinder
-bad brake piston seal

Did you recently have any brake work done? I swapped rear pads, which meant I had to twist in the rear pistons. A week later I developed a leaky rear brake piston seal. Occasionally would leak causing a pressure loss when braking... not a fun scenario.

messecar

I'm not sure if they went to the floor the second time, either. I didn't expect it again, because inbetween, they worked. In my mind, they did go to the floor. But I'm really not sure. If I dare drive it and it happens again, I will be paying attention.

messecar

A few weeks ago we replaced an upper tie rod. The old one didn't want to come off, and it took quite a while to get it loose. We were very careful not to disturb anything else, but maybe we did.

CvTech

do some more testing, like in an open parking lot.

8Rings

Look at the vacuum lines running to the brake booster. It might be that the brakes didn't fail it's just that without the booster working it could just have surprised you with how much effort it took.

If you were around the tie-rod you could have disturbed the wheel sensor and/or wire.

messecar

Ok. I will check those things. For some reason, the car didn't stop. It coasted to a stop in the middle of the intersection. Was pretty scary. Would be nice if we just jarred something loose under there.