Lost my Brakes Yesterday
 

So I drive up to the bank teller yesterday. Take care of business and leave. I get to the end of the bank parking lot, hit the breaks and nothing. I ended up rolling onto the highway :) I jumped out and looking under my truck and there, near the middle of the truck was a puddle of break fluid. Jesus, I could have killed myself or someone else. You should have seen me driving home without having breaks :)

Dude...thank your lucky stars you are ok.

Is there also rust holes in the floor of your truck that you can watch the road go by?

DAMN MAN!! glad your ok, thats no joke right there. is it a busted line? did ya run over any branches or anything on the way to the bank?

The break line must have just blown out. Not a drop of break fluid in the reservoir. Believe me, you don't want to get run into by my truck no matter how fast it is going :)

Just an FYI - this happened too me about 3 years ago in a friends old van.
Shift to neutral, leave the engine running and apply the parking brake.
The parking brake is always mechanical so having no fluid doesn't matter.

Good thing you're ok! :)

My emergency break doesn't even come close to stopping my truck when it is moving. :) I really don't expect it to happen again.

next time try your Fred Flintstone breaks...

That's what Kobe said after the Lakers lost their 7th in a row.
Hope for the best, expect the worst, Jim. Better safe than sorry. Be careful.

Holy crap. Glad nothing worse happened :)

I'm glad you didn't heart yourself or somebody else Jim

do you have any pics?

I know that problem - sometimes I go and try to get a new top speed limit on the "German Autobahn" - so when trying to break down from about 200m/h it feels as if you don't have any breaks anymore :(

good thing you are ok Jim... what kind of truck do you have?

Yikes! Glad you got it hauled down without an event there Jim. Well, other than perhaps needing to change your trousers! lol

Been many years since I've had brakes fail, but I do recall it's an eye opener for sure |shocking|

Damn Jim I am glad all is ok

Wow.. that is scary. Glad to hear you're OK.

So did you piss someone off recently that might have a personal vendetta against you?

I've lost brakes a couple times in my life- it's an extremely scary experience.

There's a trick that will stop most vehicles, better than the parking brake, which isn't strong enough to really stop a vehicle that has any momentum.

Reach down, turn the key, and shut the engine off, leaving the car in gear.

The mechanical resistance of the engine is the strongest force you can apply to a moving car when you have lost the brakes.

I learned this the first time I lost brakes- I was 17, lost them on a busy road, and was lucky enough to weave in and out of cars, on the side of the road and into oncoming traffic, untill i was able to pull into a parking lot where I was just able to dump enough momentum to stop by bumping lightly into a building.

When I talked to a mechanic, he suggested the 'turning the engine off" trick, and I drove from there to the garage, braking by shutting off the engine at lights and stop signs.

That'll put hair on your chest...

Yeah..unfortunately, its enough to make you lighter on top of the scalp too!

I told that cocksucker to not park in front of my house. :D

Glad to hear you didn't scratch that big truck running over anyone's bones, Jim. My father once drove into a bridge embankment intentionally when he lost his brakes. Totalled his car, his nose and a couple of ribs. The bridge was fine though. ;)

Been there, done that.
Unfortunately, this also kills your power steering pump. Good luck steering if your vehicle is over 2k lbs.

Still suggesting you use the parking brake. However, Bill is correct on using the engine, downshift 3 2 1 in addition to the parking brake.

Not exactly sure as to what I did, it was on instinct as I flew through an intersection at about 40 mph.

Fuck! That must have been a rather pants-filling moment.

It might have been easier to stop with a manual gearbox.

"And that is honestly the reason why I didn't stop for you, Officer". :-)

The title of this thread is driving me crazy. I keep on thinking that Jim is having a coding problem and lost his breaks
somehow.

eeeek thats something I have nightmares about! I am so glad you are okay Jim and it didnt happen when you were flying along the highway or down a steep hill :|

I think its strange that GG havnt posted here "Ohhh Jim, Im so glad your ok!"......

Strange......

/Thomas

lol or maybe they are in contact with each other apart than here... (some people have phones or icq)
Didn't your dealer warn you about the paranoia asscociated with those kind of substances? lol

WOW.. thank goodness you are safe :D

My truck weighs 12k pounds. The disk breaks are the size of garbage can lids. There really isn't any trick to stop it.

Egads Jim! I thought my truck was a heavy beast!

What the heck are you driving...and does it say Peterbilt on the side of it??? lol

And you have a truck like this why, for hauling the meat for your chilli, moving houses, why?

It's just a simple F-350 with a 7.3 liter diesel engine. Actually, the same engine that they use in school busses. Except mine is turbo charged.
I originally bought it to pull a boat. Now I pull a camper sometimes. Mostly, it just moves me around. I am always confident that if I have an accident, I will be OK :)

the law of gross tonnage

lighter vehicles yield

Never had my brakes go completely out but about 18 mos ago I had my fucking hood fly up on me while driving down the road. Somehow I managed to bend the hood latch to the side and rather then going into the hole where it's supposed to latch, it went to the side. Looked perfectly normal when the hood was down, sounded normal when i closed it and everything. Luckily when it flew up ( and bent the shit out of everything in its path ) I was in the right lane and could just pull on to the shoulder, but whats scary is I was about 1/4 from being on the the interstate where I tend to do at least 70mph.

Yep, that's a BIG un! lol

Mine's a Chev Avalanche half ton chassis...ONLY weighs about 7k pounds. Still think I'd win the battle with most in an accident...as long as I steer clear of Jim! LOL!

I'm guessing that there would just be some bits of blood stained spun glass left if Jim's truck hit my Vette.

momentum = mass * velocity

So, if Jim was driving 30, and you were doing 120, and it was head-on, it would be a fair matchup. :)

Yeah but unlike JIm I have brakes.

In this case, using your brakes would cause you to lose. What you need to do if you see Jim coming at you head on is stomp on the accellerator -- every mph over 120 is a point in your favor. You might opt for the whipple supercharger to get you that extra, perhaps a little nitrous for the last 200 yards. Make sure you have the Superchips upgrade too. Use Avgas or octane boost. Eek every bit of performance out.

You can win that battle. You just need speed. :)

I've had it up to a bit over 180, it's terrifying.

so what you're saying is..... If she sees an out of control, brakeless Jim coming at her, she should floor it... vowing that if she's going, she's taking Jim with her??

|shocking|

Ahhh...the ol fiberglass torpedo plan! Makes perfect sense :D