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Dual circuit brakes - very unlikely to have a complete braking failure.
5 days into new ownership of car that's been reliable for the past several years.
New owner "is always trashing cars on the local crappy roads – popped tyres, broken suspension etc."
I doubt it was the car that was the problem here.
As other have suggested - an inspection / test of the car (depending on how damaged / driveable it is) should help here.
The handbrake on that car was odd, held on like a limpet when stationary, almost imperceptible effect if moving, yet legitimately passed the MOT each year.
Parking brake only needs to reach 16% efficiency (or lock below the 16%) to pass an MOT on a dual circuit system, which when combined with relatively little weight on the rear, means it's really not going to stop you any time soon.
So it’s looking like the problem is somewhere between the steering wheel and the seat.
I call that sticky 🐂 💩
Can brakes just fail with no warning? It’s always been fine.
Yes, it bloody well can, and it happened to my mates Metro with me as passenger while we were on our way back home from Bristol! We were heading east on the A420, coming up to the Pennsylvania junction at Cold Ashton where the road crosses the A46 carrying traffic from Bath to the M4 at the Tormarton junction. At around 6pm, that’s a busy road, and as my mate started to slow up for what was then a roundabout, he put his foot on the brake to change down and the brakes didn’t work; we’d just driven out of the centre of Bristol without a sign of a problem. He yanked on the hand brake and kept changing down, and we managed to get around into a lay-by right on the left exit of the roundabout. Much flashing of lights and blowing of horns, but thankfully no collisions.
That was a very scary situation that I’m in no hurry to experience again. It took sodding ages for the AA to turn up to pick us and the car up - thankfully I have coverage as part of my bank account - I was offered it and accepted it, on a ‘just in case, you never know’ basis.
happened to my mates Metro
There's a reason you don't see many metros on the road these days.
I had complete brake failure once when borrowing my parents’ car some time around 1995 but car was low end metro probably pre 1990 model so maybe systems have improved. Pedal went to the floor with little resistance and car kept going. Luckily I had the presence of mind to pump the pedal hard and after a few goes it screeched to a halt just about at the traffic light. Also it was early Sunday morning with no traffic. I abandoned my planned trip and drove home gently, the problem didn’t recur and no fault was found. I assume some problem with fluid as can happen on MTB brakes though at the time I had no experience of those.
I had a passenger who witnessed this, I wasn’t a very experienced driver but certainly wasn’t pressing wrong pedal etc.
I’d also be sceptical if someone who regularly crashed cars did it just after getting a new (to them) one. But it really did happen to me.
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What car is it?
Steel lines can corrode and pop that would cause the pedal to drop.
But if you get in the car and the pedals ok..... I'd say 100% driver error.
Also if icy abs wont decrease stopping distances it can increase them.
Seems to me it's likely this was a problem with the nut holding the wheel.
I doubt it, they wil just pay out as a fault claim, and bump the premium up on renewal.
And the OPs relative will be texting again, to try and get them to pay the difference!
always trashing cars on the local crappy roads – popped tyres, broken suspension
oh so she’s a shit driver then ?
If roads are bad you slow down to a safe speed not just continue on until it causes significant damage to the vehicle. I think a change of driver is needed
I've been in a car that suffered complete brake failure, but it was over 25 years ago in my FiL's already ancient Renault 4. Hardly modern 🙂
The car was a write off, but fortunately there weren't any major injuries. I do (still!) feel sorry for the young French couple waiting at the roundabout that we hit, they were clearly on their way down to the Algarve/South coast, and I'm guessing we made a right mess of their holidays...
And FWIW i've never had "sudden brake failure" on a car that couldn't easily and quickly be attributed to how it was used or set up (prototypes with immature software or failed parts on test etc etc).
And that's several years of test and development driving, 10's of thousands of km a year on track and road, plus private mileage.
Best failure was a pin that dropped out of the brake linkage on a US spec Explorer. Which had a very early proto EPB system and an old 4 or 5 speed auto.
Enough transmission drag in neutral that it would keep moving... Only way to stop it was to pull the EPB (fun and abrupt), kill the engine (pain in the arse to restart) or drop it into P at ~2mph (abrupt and noisy)
Ended up doing a temp fix with a random purple bolt i found in my bag and a paperclip wrapped around the other end. Whilst lying on the road under the bloody thing at a set of traffic lights in the middle of Burton upon Trent... Then drove (carefully) to a proper garage to get a more suitable bolt.
There’s a reason you don’t see many metros on the road these days.
Because they stopped making them in the 1990s?
I wonder how many people posting "it happened to me!" anecdotes had it happen in a car built in the 21st Century rather than an Austin Allegro. I doubt it's many.
My 2001 fiat tempra turD treated me to brake failure . Rear cylinder seals failed at an inopportune moment.
Just to agree with what most people have said, it's very unlikely for modern car brakes to just fail completely. The master cylinder is actually two separate cylinders in line, with each supplying two wheels. It's not impossible that there was a mechanical failure at the pedal, but that is unlikely. Whatever the case, it's easy enough to check by seeing if the brakes work now.
One possibility is that, if the car has ABS and hits ice, the ABS will reduce the braking power to match the level of grip. In an extreme case of wet ice, it's possible that someone could confuse that with brake failure. Still seems much more likely that it's just a case of a lousy driver binning it and looking for an excuse.