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Hi,
I have a 1996 Corolla Toyota with approx 230k miles on it. I’m not real car savy, so I had a friend’s uncle swap the brakes on my car with new ones. We noticed that for one side of the car, one brake pad was wearing out faster than another brake pad. A week later after the new brakes I noticed that the brakes began to engage when I was driving. I have pretty sure this problem occurs with hot weather. I drive to work at 4:30pm, after the sun had the entire day to beat down on the car, and when I come back from work, it’s night time, and never had I ever had brake issues driving back from work. It’s always the drive to work. (It’s summer time.) The mild symptom is that pushing the fuel pedal causes the car to accelerate a bit less slowly than normal. And as I drive and it heats up, I need to press the fuel pedal more and more. When it gets really bad, I cannot hit past 35mph no matter what I do. Also noticed that when it starts to lock up, pressing the brakes a little bit acts as if I’ve pressed the brake pedal down quite a bit. (Normally for my car, pressing the brake pedal just a little bit, nothing happens for the most part, I have to press a bit more.) When the locking up occurs, the brake pedal becomes harder and harder to press. And then the car gets harder to accelerate or to maintain a certain speed, and not pressing the fuel pedal basically is equivalent to braking the car.
We changed the caliper. But that problem was for only one side. We changed the brake line for the side with the caliper change. But later one I realized, that is seems like both of the front wheels are locking up, not just the side with the bad caliper (which would be passenger front.) I’ve had the car checked in to a gas station for repair (bad idea). The guy there basically took my $75 saying they fixed it, and after I came back because the car wasn’t fixed, they asked for $400 to replace the rotors, brakes, basically everything. That sounds suspicious to me, and the guys there never tell me what’s wrong with the car even after I insisted on them telling me. So I did not go through with the $400 repair.
My friend’s uncle is the person that tries to do the repairs but apparently, he’s very busy. I’m asking here for some advice, before I am forced to take this car to another mechanic place – preferably one that doesn’t try to scam its customers.
The car had no braking problems in the past that I recall. It does seem a little coincidental that a week after the brake change, the problems started – then again, at that time, summer started to set in and the weather started to get hot. (But I drove around to school and back at noon without ever having brake problems ever in the past).
Also another thing, unsure if relevant. I noticed the brake lights were perpetually on, even when I wasn’t pressing the brakes. The uncle did some fix though, and the lights now don’t shine for no reason at all.
How much am I looking at if I get a master cylinder replaced, assuming that’s the reason behind the problems I have been getting?
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Sounds like the other caliper is going bad or is bad. Usually they are changed out in pairs. Eric says you can only change one if that is all your budget allows. When I do that level of work on Brakes I change out everything Pads, Rotors, hoses and calipers. Both sides. It may be over kill but I haven’t had any issues yet. Brakeing performance is dramatically improved.
If that is the problem you are looking at about 100ish for the part depending on model and about 2 hr labor plus shop charges and etc. But I wouldn’t condemn the master cylinder yet check out Eric’s Videos. and this link:
http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/solving-brake-problems
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