TOTAL brake failure this morning on the SL55AMG

[CorvetteConvert]

Sheeeeeet, that wasn't too much fun.
Sudden warning noises and messages on the dashboard and an almost total lack of any braking ability greeted me today, doing about 80 mph in the Merc.
Ended up using the gearbox and parking brake to stop.
ESP lamp lit and 2 messages to stop and not drive anywhere.
Lovely!

[hman]

any ideas why?

[CorvetteConvert]

I'm not the world's greatest mechanic and i honestly don't know where to begin.
I got the car home on hazzard lights at 20 mph maximum and the fault cleared itself at one stage, but is back again. Even stopping the car on a gentle gradient (my driveway) from 10 mph was a nightmare.
I am assuming it's an electrical gremlin in the ESP/ABS brains but jeezuz; what if that had happened at silly mph?

[CorvetteConvert]

1955kgs plus driver is serious weight to stop, hence the 8-piston callipers it has up front and huge discs all round.

[300bhp/ton]

Guess that your claim of having bought 'decent' cars was maybe a little far fetched then


-- Glad nobody was hurt mind and hope you get it sorted.

[steveo3002]

never going to be able to trust it again are you ?

[dazren]

Had this happen on a 2002 SL500. Some sort of hydraulic/pump failure. An internet search showed other cars with the same issue. An outrageous safety issue tbh. I was going 60mph down hill prior to a sweeping right hand bend, pressed the brake to slow down for the corner and got about 5% of normal braking, took about 500 metres to stop. I was lucky there was no traffic about or I may well have crashed the car.

The car said to drive to the nearest garage! No chance. Got the car recovered on the back of a lorry.

[Motorrad]

300bhp/ton said:

Guess that your claim of having bought 'decent' cars was maybe a little far fetched then


-- Glad nobody was hurt mind and hope you get it sorted.

Putting the boot in is the mark of a very, very small man.

edit to add: sounds like a SBC failure a common problem.

Edited by Motorrad on Tuesday 20th October 16:28

[anonymous-user]

300bhp/ton said:

Guess that your claim of having bought 'decent' cars was maybe a little far fetched then


-- Glad nobody was hurt mind and hope you get it sorted.

Very poor form.

[swisstoni]

sounds virtually impossible. Even the old junk I used to drive had dual circuit brakes.

[Swanny87]

Hang on, you drove the car after this happened? Did the brakes fail because of the extra weight of your steel balls?

[Shaw Tarse]

Not the same level, but my gran had brake failure in her Metro.
She changed down a couple of gears, knew there was a pub not too far away.
Stopped there, borrowed their phone to call AA & ordered a drink !

[SteveSteveson]

CorvetteConvert said:

I got the car home on hazzard lights at 20 mph maximum and the fault cleared itself at one stage, but is back again. Even stopping the car on a gentle gradient (my driveway) from 10 mph was a nightmare.

That was brave. I would have called the RAC for a flat back.

CorvetteConvert said:

I am assuming it's an electrical gremlin in the ESP/ABS brains but jeezuz; what if that had happened at silly mph?

Never mind silly mph, just having been somewhere you needed to brake, even at 30mph coming up to a roundabout or whatever.

Hopefully it will be a known fault with an easy fix. Whilst an un-fixed known fault is annoying with brakes it is better than an a mechanic guessing at an unknown electrical fault.

[CorvetteConvert]

300bhp/ton said:

Guess that your claim of having bought 'decent' cars was maybe a little far fetched then


-- Glad nobody was hurt mind and hope you get it sorted.

Computers and the like are great unless they go wrong, as we all know.
I don't think any of my current 6 vehicles are not 'decent', in fairness.
Even the workhorse, the Mondeo 240 is a cracking car for what it is built for.
Yes, i know you are turning my key!

[Superhoop]

yonex said:

300bhp/ton said:

Guess that your claim of having bought 'decent' cars was maybe a little far fetched then

Very poor form.

And that was surprise how? It was 300bhp/ton after all.... Awaits the "Maybe the OP should have bought that 1971 Dodge charger as "sensible daily for 5,000 miles a year" after all...." comments from 300

ETA: Hope you get it sorted OP, and that the costs aren't crazy... Also good to see that you got home safely.

[julian64]

Sounds like you lost servo assistance on the brakes, or possibly its monitoring brake fluid level and you had a leak. The former means you shouldn't lose all braking, it just means you went back to driving a car from thirty years ago. The latter would mean there was nothing under your feet.

I once drove a lotus elan from devon to reading with NO brakes except a handbrake. It was going well till I decided to race my father.

[TurboHatchback]

Did the pedal drop to the floor? If so give it a few pumps then look underneath and check there's no puddle. The only time this happened to me it turned out some escaped battery acid from long ago had got onto a brake line, allowed it to start rusting in a hidden place and it finally blew out completely. All the rest of the lines were in perfect condition.

[Lalli220]

that tustve been scary! had issues with breaks when cold on my VX but at 80mph :/ hopefully its gets fixed, can't believe there hasn't been a recall on it, if its happened on more than one car...

[kambites]

I'm guessing from "almost total lack" as opposed to "total lack" that it was a servo failure. Modern cars are require an enormous amount of pedal pressure to stop them without the servo.

[CorvetteConvert]

I was around 1000 metres from home when this happened. I set the speed limiter to 20 mph and literally crawled back on hazzards. In first gear manual mode.