Posted by Deneb on January 14, 2008, at 10:02:59
I think this is a very rare phenomenon, but it happened to my dad's car last night.
My dad and mom picked me up from work last night and we went to our aunt's place to eat dinner. Everything was fine with the car, no warning lights, no problems braking, etc.
After dinner and conversation, we decided to go home. When the car was turned on the brake light on the dash came on. My dad was perplexed. He tried pulling and releasing the handbrake, but nothing worked to turn off the light.
We we drive off. So far everything is fine still, the brakes work all right or we don't notice anything.
Then suddenly the brakes stopped working. My dad said there was no resistance in the brake pedal.
My dad was like, "hmmm...the brakes stopped working." He didn't make a big deal out of it, he also said it softly so I thought he must have said something else because he kept on driving!
So he's still driving (pressing the accelerator)! Then my mom said, shouldn't we drive slowly?
Then I said, "What? the brakes stopped working? You mean we can't stop? Why are you still driving? Are you crazy?"
So my dad pulls into a side street leading to a building and he's still driving, finding a place to stop. He was about to drive into this section that sloped down and we immediately stopped him. Man o man, I'm not sure what my dad was thinking! We had no brakes and he wanted to drive down a slope??! What the heck??
If it'd been me driving I would have not pressed on the accelerator once I realized the brakes stopped working but my dad still drove past two intersections before pulling into the side street!
Anyways, we finally stop. We called my aunt and she came to drive us home and get tow truck.
Thank goodness we didn't crash! This was majorly scary. Lesson, never ever ignore the brake warning light!
I wonder what went wrong? I googled this and there's not much on total sudden brake failure. Usually there are warning signs like the brakes don't work as well or whatever. My dad said there was suddenly no resistance on the brake pedal. Thank goodness it was late at night and not many cars where around!
poster:Deneb
thread:806378
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20080104/msgs/806378.html