Brakes delayed failure after crossing ford

FoxEye

FoxEye

FoxEye

Caporegime
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Chaps, can I pick your brains...

I just had to drive my car into a hedge due to complete brake failure. It was either that or pile into the car in front at a junction.

Now this is probably due to driving through a ford, but the brakes were working fine on a 1 mile stretch of flat road after the ford. It was only after the road dipped steeply downhill that the brakes failed.

As to the failure, the break pedal appeared to offer no resistance at all and there was a grinding sound coming from the car. I've had a look at the road and there was no ice or gravel. Was wet but the car has two new front tyres and the rear tyres are nearly new. I had the front two replaced last weekend.

So is this normal? I thought if you tested your brakes after going through a ford and they worked that they were fine. Didn't think that you could have a delayed failure.

Anyway, front right wheel is damaged, windscreen is cracked, right front wing is scraped but not dented. The wheel took the majority of the impact.

I'm just wondering whether to involve the insurance in this. Truth be told I want to get rid of the car anyway - it's not the best example of a Yaris and FSH the dealer promised is a total lie. Lots of things don't work :/

In an ideal world the insurers would write it off, but I don't think the damage is enough for that.
 
seems strange?

only thing should happen was the water would cool the pads/discs and braking wouldn't be as good till they heated up again = less braking

if your hearing grinding then the pads have probably worn down to the metal
 
I seem to remember you're in your first year of driving? If so, definitely do not involve the insurance, as it sounds like the amount it'll cost to repair will be nothing in comparison to the increase in premiums you'll have to put up with for the next 5 years. Despite the brake failure, they will treat it as your fault.
 
Diagro said:
how long you had it?
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3 months and a couple days.

wazza300 said:
seems strange?

only thing should happen was the water would cool the pads/discs and braking wouldn't be as good till they heated up again = less braking

if your hearing grinding then the pads have probably worn down to the metal
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The weird thing is, after driving into the hedge - which stopped the car - the brakes started working again. In fact I drove home (which was probably not a smart idea, but hey).

On the trip home the brakes seemed normal. This is why I was sure it was due to driving through the ford (water was about 6-8cm deep).

But like I said, for a mile after the ford on a flat, winding road I was braking normally. In fact I had to stop in a couple places.

It just doesn't make sense.
 
geekman said:
I seem to remember you're in your first year of driving? If so, definitely do not involve the insurance, as it sounds like the amount it'll cost to repair will be nothing in comparison to the increase in premiums you'll have to put up with for the next 5 years. Despite the brake failure, they will treat it as your fault.
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I figured as much. Will take some photos to the garage tomorrow and see how much it'll cost to fix.

Yeah I've been driving privately for 3 months only. Driven work vans since 2010.
 
FoxEye said:
I figured as much. Will take some photos to the garage tomorrow and see how much it'll cost to fix.

Yeah I've been driving privately for 3 months only. Driven work vans since 2010.
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I wouldn't even bother doing that. Get some t-cut and polish out the scratches, get a new wheel from a breakers, get the tracking done as it'll have been knocked out and, assuming you've got windscreen cover, call your insurers and just claim for that as windscreen claims don't affect your renewal (probably not a good idea to tell them the damage was caused by you crashing though)

If you just take it to the average garage and say "how much will this cost to fix", you'll almost certainly get a quote for considerably more than you'd expect as they'll probably get the wing painted, get a new wheel from Toyota etc which isn't really worth doing on an old Yaris.
 
Always remember you have an E brake!

Kind of sounds like the piston was pushed back in enough that the peddle needed some pumping, or a brake pad has fallen into a peculiar angle? Did you check the pads and discs?
 
Could be that water was trapped between the disc and pad. When you try to brake it heats up, turns gaseous and prevents the pads contacting the disc properly. Could also be some was stuck behind the pad and the first time you pumped it squeezed it out and it ended up on the outer surface.
 
acemastr said:
Always remember you have an E brake!

Kind of sounds like the piston was pushed back in enough that the peddle needed some pumping, or a brake pad has fallen into a peculiar angle? Did you check the pads and discs?
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An E brake? Never heard it called that before :) It was a split second thing and I didn't think about the hand brake. Was just a sort of "****, this shouldn't be happening, **** there's an expensive car in front, **** I either hit him or ditch in the hedge... OK ditching!" kind of moment :p

I must admit when you hit your brakes and nothing happens that is a panic moment :p

I haven't checked the discs, I don't have a clue what I'm looking for/at. Sorry my car knowledge is the bare minimum needed to pass the test.
 
FoxEye said:
An E brake? Never heard it called that before :) It was a split second thing and I didn't think about the hand brake. Was just a sort of "****, this shouldn't be happening, **** there's an expensive car in front, **** I either hit him or ditch in the hedge... OK ditching!" kind of moment :p

I must admit when you hit your brakes and nothing happens that is a panic moment :p

I haven't checked the discs, I don't have a clue what I'm looking for/at. Sorry my car knowledge is the bare minimum needed to pass the test.
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I know it as a handbrake as well but here it's known as an e brake (emergency).

I wouldn't have thought to pull it either, not enough time/practice/brain power to think of it.

You really need someone professional to take a look at the brakes and ensure this won't happen again, you'll be paranoid for the rest of your car ownership if you don't.
 
FoxEye said:
An E brake? Never heard it called that before :)
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It's yet another stupid Americanism.

You sure you didn't just hit some ice/slippery patch whilst braking and the "grinding" was the ABS activating?

Another possibly, though remote, is that the pad material has detached on one of the pads which would both make the pedal sink to the floor and also cause grinding when it eventually pumped up enough. This wouldn't get better though, it would keep grinding.
 
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Dogbreath said:
It's yet another stupid Americanism.

You sure you didn't just hit some ice/slippery patch whilst braking and the "grinding" was the ABS activating?

Another possibly, though remote, is that the pad material has detached on one of the pads which would both make the pedal sink to the floor and also cause grinding when it eventually pumped up enough. This wouldn't get better though, it would keep grinding.
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I've been back to take some photos of the road and hedge I hit - the road is wet but no ice (it's not cold enough here atm).

I have a vague idea of how ABS is supposed to work, and the grinding was similar to the feel of ABS, but there was no braking at all. I guess it could have been an ABS malfunction? No idea how it works.

But yeah, I was pushing that brake pedal for about 1-2 seconds and there was no braking at all. Just rolled on down the hill towards the guy in front. If he hadn't have pulled away from the junction I'd have rear-ended him. The hedge took a second or so to stop me :p

Actually having taken some pics of the car I'm surprised how little damage looks to have been done. Will post a pic or two. My front right wheel is 50% organic now tho :p
 
Could you feel the "grinding" through the brake pedal, and was the pedal pushing back up against your foot?
 
Pants said:
Could you feel the "grinding" through the brake pedal, and was the pedal pushing back up against your foot?
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Yes, no.

It was for a second or two at most (before I hit the hedge) but the pedal seemed to be down all the way and giving no push back at all. Like it was completely disconnected.

I can't be 100% certain about this as I was in full panic mode at the time :p
 
Is it possible that a decent amount of water had managed to build up or get trapped within the body of the car and it then sloshed forwards once you headed down hill and basically drowned the brakes just when you needed them?

That could explain why the brakes worked ok when you tested them, and same after the car hit the hedge.

Or something totally unrelated - very slippy road surface on the downhill causing total loss of grip, in which case the ABS would pretty much disable any braking from the pedal hence the grinding type sound you heard which is very often indicative of the ABS working.
 
Well, as for the road, the vehicle in front had no problems at all. And when I returned (on foot) to take some photos, there was no indication of ice or oil, no loose gravel; just a normal, albeit wet, road. No better or worse than the road I took to drive home after the accident.

Do ABS brakes ever malfunction?

I'm just thinking that the chance of all 4 of the brakes being unable to provide any friction at the same time, seems quite unlikely. It was a low speed incident (<20mph), so any braking at all would have been noticeable. It didn't feel like there was any braking happening. When I pushed the pedal absolutely nothing happened bar the grinding noise/vibration.
 
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