Odd brake happenings from my 06 Sienna

Hey guys,

  On Tuesday my wife and I took my 06 Sienna up into Boston to pick up her new RAV-4. It was about an hour trip with the last 15-20 minutes in heavy stop and go Boston traffic. During one of the thousand times hitting the brakes they made a strange sound, and started grabbing harder than usual. almost felt like ABS kicking in a bit. This kept up for the remainder of the trip, and was a little worrisome. After we arrived at the dealership I felt the front wheels, and both were very warm, but not terribly so. I gave both a sniff and I smelled a bit of that telltale brake smell. While we were in the dealership picking up the car the wheels cooled down, and the trip home went perfectly fine with no noise, even though it was also in some pretty heavy traffic at times.

Rotors, pads, and calipers were replaced about 2k miles ago, and I haven't experienced anything weird since this happened. It was probably mid 80's ambient temp when this happened,and the traffic was heavy. Should I be concerned? The trip home was probably a bit cooler as the sun had set by this point.

It was just nervous that it might be headed to the scrap yard..... You should have let it know that it would be coming home with you. 

imgon said:

It was just nervous that it might be headed to the scrap yard..... You should have let it know that it would be coming home with you. 

Chuck, she may be an overweight daytime stripper, with a C-section scar, but she's still my girl. No scrap yard for her.

If it didn't happen on the way home, maybe you just picked up some schmegma and it cleared itself? Intermittent stuff sucks to find. The old gal still has plenty left in her, she was just jittery, gotta let her know up front what your plan is. 

Check the fluid level?  I had a wheel cylinder leak on the truck, and the brake material got real grabby.

1988RedT2 said:

Check the fluid level?  I had a wheel cylinder leak on the truck, and the brake material got real grabby.

Fluid level was fine, I checked it. 

Sometimes minivans, because they're so awesome in every sense, attract all sorts of things that want to be with them. Sounds like you probably got something thrown between the pad and the disc and it worked itself out.

mtn said:

Sometimes minivans, because they're so awesome in every sense, attract all sorts of things that want to be with them. Sounds like you probably got something thrown between the pad and the disc and it worked itself out.

You're not wrong about the awesome factor. 

Caliper stuck on slider pins?  And yes, minivans are awesome.

Check to make sure both caliper pins are there.  Not kidding.

My 96 Impala SS did a similar thing, but it only seemed to happen under hard braking or if the brakes were hot.  Turns out, one of the caliper bolts had sheared off due to awesomeness (translation: rusted through) and under most normal braking it was fine.  Under more spirited/hot conditions it would kick the caliper out and hit the wheel which caused a sudden noise and change in pedal feel.

In reply to ShinnyGroove :

EDIT: Apparently either my butt or Milo the wunderdawg made an empty post. 

Curtis said:

Check to make sure both caliper pins are there.  Not kidding.

My 96 Impala SS did a similar thing, but it only seemed to happen under hard braking or if the brakes were hot.  Turns out, one of the caliper bolts had sheared off due to awesomeness (translation: rusted through) and under most normal braking it was fine.  Under more spirited/hot conditions it would kick the caliper out and hit the wheel which caused a sudden noise and change in pedal feel.

I mean I'll check, but the calipers are new within the past two months.