Catastrophic Brake Failure

[Don]

So yesterday I got to enjoy a new driving conundrum. What do you do when the brakes fail.

Exciting! Not half.

I'd decided to do a small B road route after some hours of motorway travel. So I came off the M4 at junction 14, for Hungerford if you head south, but headed north to where I intended to take the B4000 over to the A34. Its a lovely little road. Camera free. Lovely to drive and with pretty villages and pubs along the way. No need to hoon (but fun if you do).

I headed up the road. Looked around and saw no traffic. There's the junction I need on my right. Okey dokey time to brake.

BANG! Brake pedal drops another couple of inches. Braking effect reduced massively.

I think to meself. Oh ho. Not going to make the junction. Keep foot on brake, keep steering wheel straight, try and make the corner following. Phew! Did it.

Apalling grinding sound from the rear driver's side of the car. Yup - the brake pad has pretty much disintegrated. I'm in a very windy twisty road - bit of a dangerous spot so instead of call from where I was I limp a mile or so at less than 20mph to a nearby pub and call the RAC to get it recovered.

Interestingly I did have "some" brakes - after all, the fronts do most of the work, but I didn't want to ruin the caliper or try any emergency braking by trying to get home.

Got home very late and not just a little disturbed.

I have to tell you: spinning on track, spinning on the road (as a passenger), coming off in a kart and breaking a rib - all these things are significantly less scary than pressing the brake pedal and it NOT doing what its supposed to.

Damnit. I service the car regularly and change the discs and pads whenever required.

Moral of the story? Sometimes shit happens. And sometimes you get lucky and there's no-one around...

[Don]

bertbert said:

unusual occurence I think (although don't know). What car/age was it? Interesting to find out the cause.
Bert

I shall be asking at the garage. They are replacing the rear discs and pads.


Oh...sorry: It was a 51 plate Vauxhall Vectra. Kept services on the nose and pads/discs always replaced when the main dealer advised.

Edited by Don on Wednesday 7th March 13:08

[Don]

WeirdNeville said:

The scarred left rear alloy burnt by the hot shards of metal off of the discs and pad backing bears testament to the folly of this. I think next time I'll call the AA.

I didn't want to cause any further damage. I had *some* braking - which was what averted a rather nasty trip to the hedge - but I wasn't driving it 40 miles home.

[Don]

ipsg.glf said:

Don

Did you perform a slow speed and high speed brake test, prior to starting the drive?

Every morning I do a full drill (yes, really, I am a bit geeky about it). They seemed fine. I'd just done a hundred miles or so with no problems and full braking capability.

When younger (as a student) my car once ran all the way through its pads before I replaced them. You get some warning, usually, even without modern pad depth sensors - the start of a rough noise when braking and so on.

Nothing like that. Brakeity brake. Bang. Aaargh! As I said - I had *some* braking left. I wasn't going to drive any distance like that, though.

[Don]

GreenV8S said:

In the past I've found that metal-to-metal brakes work if anything rather better than the old fashioned sort with the linings attached - they just don't last as long. Didn't you find that the brakes came back after you pumped the pedal a few times to take up the extra travel?

I did retain some braking, yes, and pumping up the pedal helped. Horrendous noise of course. Wasn't going to go far like that. In fact I did a mile or two to the nearest village with a pub and stopped in its car park.