The brakes on my car died... unpleasant.

The brakes on my car failed on me today. To be fair, the car is a 1994 Toyota Camry, and it was inevitable that age caught up with it eventually...

So as usual during my lunch break I drive to the local Subway to get my standard whatever-I-feel-like-today sub with chips and a drink. I chat and joke with the employees as always (being a nice regulars brings perks), get in my car and leave the parking lot. I cross The Big Intersection filled with busy lunch traffic, and start heading down the street back towards work, and suddenly the car just feels wrong. It felt like I was driving with the parking brake on, except this car has no manual parking brake.

I pull over and check things out, but nothing seems out of place, so I check to make sure that all lanes are clear and start driving again. The car feels even more wrong now, especially once I get up above 15mph, as if it's reluctantly dragging the rear tires along under strong protests. Something smells... burnt...? :eek

Just as I notice that, a bright red light on the dash board comes on. Now, I admit I don't know a lot about cars, but I one thing I do know is that the red "BRAKES" light on the dash board should never be on while I'm driving. I also know that if it ever does come on while I'm driving, I should stop driving as soon as possible.

Accordingly I pull into the first subdivision I can find, and stop the car. The brake pedal is by now moving freely in any direction it pleases, but having no effect on the brakes at all. It's as if the brakes have locked on to the tires and are refusing to let go.

I called The Guy, told him the brakes on the Camry stopped working, spent the next five minutes reassuring him I had not been in an accident and that I was fine, and he immediately wanted to know where I was so he could come pick me up. He drove me back to work and picked me up at the end of my shift, and the Camry has been towed to a local shop that has worked on our cars in the past.

All things considered, this could have been so much worse. I was on an empty street with no traffic and the brakes stopped the car when I hit them, they just didn't let go. All we have to deal with now is a repair bill for the brakes, whatever that may be. I'm going to call the shop tomorrow to get a quote. In all, I'm kind of relieved nothing bad happened.

 

Thankfully you were not harmed.

Metal can be replaced, soft tissue cannot.

I hope the pain of new brakes is not that bad.

 

Very true. Cars are just big metal things, and they can be repaired or replaced as necessary. Limbs and organs are a lot harder to fix up if they get crunched by big cars.

As I mentioned, I'll be calling the shop tomorrow to get an estimate. Our other car still works just fine, and since The Guy works from home it will be easy to co-ordinate things with just one car. Hopefully new brakes will not cost a humongous fortune... We've already spent way too much money we didnt' expect to need to spend this summer.

 

Throw out the anchors...

...

http://www.afunnystuff.com/pics/funny/2957.jpg

 

Yikes! :eek I'm thankful you weren't hurt . . . Cars can be replaced, tis true, but Mimsy's are much harder to come by!

Shouldn't be too much . . . pads are cheap, and even if the rotors are burnt they list from 15 - 45 dollars online (don't know what the mark-up would be at a shop, though). Even if the calipers are ruined they list for around $65.
Not all Camrys had 4-wheel disc brakes . . . but the drum type pads are pretty cheap also, and replacement drums run around $45 online.
Again, cost also depends on labor fees and their mark-up on parts.

If I had to guess, it sounds like you have rear drum brakes, and on one side something (pad wear, perhaps - broken spring maybe) allowed the wheel cylinder to over-extend and jam the pad against the drum - that would explain the "dragging" feeling and smell of something burning you described. The wheel cylinder no doubt started leaking, which is why you eventually lost all pedal compression. Just a wild guess on my part . . . but your description sure sounds familier to me.

@Caliban . . . LOL I had a '68 Nova with floorboards like that . . .

 

So after calling the shop to follow up with the Camry brakes, the problem apparently is a pair of shoes. :confused

They're called "e brake shoes", which by the way is a very lame and dumb name, and according to my co-worker that buys old cars and fixes them up as a hobby, they control the pads for the rear brakes. If I understood him right, when they get really worn down and stop working, they are designed to fail in a way that locks the brakes so the car can't move, since that's considered safer than a moving car that can't slow down. The shop mechanic said the brake shoes on the poor Camry are literally paper thin, and that they need to be replaced. He also described the brake fluid looking "like coffee", which that same co-worker confirmed is a bad thing, since that means it has been polluted and that makes it less effective.

The shop mechanic also confirmed the brake pads themselves are perfectly fine, both front and rear, and I believe him. They were very effective when they locked up yesterday!

Cost of new shoes and brake fluid, plus cost of labor, comes to roughly $200 after sales tax has been accounted for, which more than one co-worker confirmed is average and reasonable for our state. Picking up the car tomorrow.

And I am of course delighted and not the least bit surprised to find out that my car wears shoes. LOL

 

$200.00 is very cheap when compared to a hospital stay or your life.
Worse case is the life of somebody else, which in this case fortunately, did not happen.
Luck was riding shotgun with you that day.

And why shouldn't they have shoes?
In the UK, they have boots and bonnets.

 

Luck, Fate, God, whatever you want to call it. All I know is that it can't have been Karma, I'm ruthlessly mean to random strangers even on a good day.

The Guy and I were saying that earlier when we got the quote actually... compared to what could have happened, this really is nothing. The brakes failed, yes, but they did on an empty street with literally no traffic whatsoever, they locked the wheels instead of the opposite, and the cost of fixing the problem isn't outrageous. There are so many ways this could have been so much worse, I don't even want to think about it...

 

Glad you are OK Mimsy. $200 is not cheap, but not unreasonable.

Maybe you are one of God's Karma Enforcers. :-D:cool

Somebody has to balance the Karma...

 

$200 bucks isn't bad at all, considering what mechanics charge for labor anymore. I'm glad it all worked out ok.

 

I had a similar problem with my Volvo.

It's been lowered to the engine sits at a slightly different angle now and the recirculating dump valve when I was drive smacked against one of the break likes which goes to the ABS unit and snapp the break pipes flare, which ment when I break the pedal just went all the way down squirted the brake fluid out and I had no breaks.. Not good haha.
Drove home using the hand break to slow down and the gears bought a flaring kit and refllared hte end of the pipe and moved the line a little so that can't happen again.