[gargoyle]

The wife and I were driving to dinner tonight and I went to push on the brake...nothing. I quickly pumped it and got some brake action then it went to the floor again. Scary as hell.

Luckly my dealer is about 5 miles from me, so I'll ease it over there in the morning. I scanned the forums and didn't see anyone else having real honest-to-goodness brake failure yet. Looks like I get to be the first. The real scary part is I'm heading out on a 1200 mile trip this weekend. If this had failed then I would have really been SOL. I'll keep you posted...

 

[gargoyle]

I guess I should mention I have an '03 with 13,000 miles.

 

[Gonzo]

Wow! I've never heard anything like that before here. Did you look to see what your brake level was at?

 

[generator]

Sounds like your master cylinder took a crap.....if not then your brake fluid may be gone....is the fluid level ok?

 

[KoKoMo]

check your break line

May have a damaged/ nicked brake line from garbage that get kicked up from the road?

Or perhaps you have enemies that might have cut you breakline?

 

[Kris]

It happened to me 14 years ago...........it was a Ford. The master cylinder went out...........very scary...........I was lucky, I was able to cut at front of oncoming vehicle (to avoid the one at front of me) and to stop on the right hand side of the road.........(Australia). I do not want to live it again...............the mechanic said he saw it first time in his 30+ years of experience........

You were lucky there was no much traffic.

 

[hfelknor]

And you are going to drive it like that?

I hope you realize that if you hit anybody while driving a car with no brakes you could be indentured to them for the rest of your life.
As well you should be.

Have the damn thing towed.


Homer

 

[Eric L.]

This is indeed frightening to hear. Keep us informed what the dealer concludes.

 

[gargoyle]

First thing I did was check the fluid level and it was perfect. I drove it into the dealer today (not literally "into" the dealer, but it was a close thing). We'll see what they have to say about it.

I also asked them to check the voltage on the alternator just to see if there's any kind of early warning before they go.

 

[samson]

Brake line trouble

I had a rattle coming from the rear wheel well area ion the passenger side. I took it to the dealer yesterday and they said it was the parking brake cable , There is a TSB that they used to assess the situation and then fixed it, I haven't been able to see that the problem has been corrected yet (heavy rains here), but perhaps this may have something to do with it........Although my brakes haven't given oyut on me yet......

 

[gargoyle]

Dealer just called and told me the technician had "condemed" the master cylinder. Strange choice of words. And of course they don't have another MC is stock or at any local dealers. So they're searching for one. Keeping it overnight for sure.

Funny how things work: My Grubbs Sat radio kit is being delivered today. I had planned to spend this evening installing it before my trip this weekend. Hopefully I'll get the MO back tomorrow and install the sat then.

 

[Gonzo]

Well I'm glad to hear that you are OK and that they found the problem. I think I would freak if Nissan did the old "can not reproduce"!!!!!

Keep us posted (with pictures???) of the SAT install. I'm getting closer and closer to doing it myself as well.

 

[Eric L.]

Well I'm glad to hear that you are OK and that they found the problem. I think I would freak if Nissan did the old "can not reproduce"!!!!!

Keep us posted (with pictures???) of the SAT install. I'm getting closer and closer to doing it myself as well.

Egads I would refuse to drive the car from the dealers lot if I got a could not duplicate for failing brakes!

I thought with modern brakes (or any brakes 40 years or newer) there is a redundant system that even with master cylinder failure, a secondary circuit would brake two wheels (on opposite sides, and one front and one back).

 

[darrylburke]

I thought with modern brakes (or any brakes 40 years or newer) there is a redundant system that even with master cylinder failure, a secondary circuit would brake two wheels (on opposite sides, and one front and one back).

parking break.... :S

 

[gargoyle]

The last update from the dealer is that the only master cylinder they could find is at the Nissan main warehouse in California. Overnighting it and should arrive by 11:30 Thursday. If all goes well I'll get the car back after work and install the Sat tomorrow night.

It's pretty obvious this is not a common problem if no one in the Detroit/Chicago area stocks MCs.

Thank you for all your concern. Hopefully this is one of these things you'll never have to experience with your MOs.

 

[senza]

Very unusual for a master cylinder to work fine one minute and crap out the next...they usually start to leak or bleed down..eg the brake pedal slowly goes down to the floor...is the MO's a different type???.. modern brake systems have one master cylinder but two separate systems...a front and a rear...this is for safety reasons...also allows a "perportioning system"...front brakes do most of the breaking and require a lot more hydraulic pressure than the rear brakes...otherwise rear brakes would "lock up" under normal firm braking....any chance of getting more detail on why the master cylinder was condemned?

 

[gargoyle]

Just to conclude my little saga, the master cylinder arrived as schedule, the shop completed the work and I was able to take her home last night. Total shop time two days. Total cost: $0.

I have to give kudos to Ann Arbor Nissan for their work in finding and installing this in a timely fashion. I feel like they did everything right.

For what it's worth the description that the service tech wrote said that the brakes didn't work when pushed slowly but did work when pushed hard. So there's your basic symptoms for this problem.

 

[quikkik]

man, as long as you're ok and no one got hurt. master cylinders are easy to replace.

what the heck though? are there any forwarnings before somthing like that happens? or are you just SOL when it does?