[supertinu]

Hey Folks, last weekend I had the scary experience of brake caliper failure on my single hand driven 2004 Ford Ikon Flair. The car has done 67K kms and is in pretty decent shape as I have maintained it like a baby . Its primarily been driven in Bangalore city in bumper to bumper traffic.

To my good luck the incident happened in a mall parking lot when I was parking and not while driving at speed. Since it was side parking on a ramp upwards, I parked and immediately stamped the brakes to prevent the car from sliding back and in same moment also pulled the hand brake. The brake pedal got depressed normally and then suddenly gave away and got depressed fully with no braking at all. Since the hand brake was pulled the car didnt slide back. When I inspected physically, i noticed that lot of brake fluid had leaked on front right wheel side and eventual pressing of brake pedal was only giving hissing sounds as pressure was leaking. Spoke to my trusted neighborhood garage who diagnosed it has a complete caliper failure. He suggested either to drive slowly late night or get the car towed. I eventually drove back home late in the night safely mostly in 2nd gear at 10-20 kmph avoiding the main roads. Today the garage inspected the car and said the caliper had failed due to age. As per him this kind of failure is rare and happens gradually and not all of sudden as in my case. He couldn't source orig TVS parts and is suggesting that I goto ford ASS to get orig parts replaced.

Given the criticality I intend to replace both calipers to avoid such incident in future. Though the car is old, I intend to keep it for another couple of years since its in good shape and relatively trouble free and its my secondary car now. I have a 2 yr old Ford Figo as well. I drive the Ikon to work couple of times in a week only.

Wanted to hear from the forum on this failure. Is this something normal for old cars?

[Captain Slow]

Originally Posted by supertinu

Wanted to hear from the forum on this failure. Is this something normal for old cars?

surely this is not normal! One of the cars we have is nearly 2 decades old! The brake calipers do makes noises but thats because of the caliper pins becoming a bit lose and the rubber going bad but nothing like this ever has happened. (its a Maruti Suzuki !)

Was the brake fluid recently changed?

[Praveer]

Hi,

That's was a scary issue. Good part was that this issue occurred in the mall and not on a busy road or when the car was at high speed.

Well if brake fluid was leaking, then possibility is that it was leaking before you went to the mall. Didn't you noticed a reduction in braking capability of the car as brake fluid was leaking?

I had an Opel Corsa and used it for 7 years. And not a single brake caliper failure occurred hence I can't regard this issue as common in old cars.

[supertinu]

Originally Posted by Captain Slow

surely this is not normal! One of the cars we have is nearly 2 decades old! The brake calipers do makes noises but thats because of the caliper pins becoming a bit lose and the rubber going bad but nothing like this ever has happened. (its a Maruti Suzuki !)

Was the brake fluid recently changed?

Not very recently but yes during my last service about 10 months back I had got the entire brake system flushed and new brake fluid replaced.

Originally Posted by Praveer

Hi,

That's was a scary issue. Good part was that this issue occurred in the mall and not on a busy road or when the car was at high speed.

Well if brake fluid was leaking, then possibility is that it was leaking before you went to the mall. Didn't you noticed a reduction in braking capability of the car as brake fluid was leaking?

I had an Opel Corsa and used it for 7 years. And not a single brake caliper failure occurred hence I can't regard this issue as common in old cars.

If there was a leakage I probably didn't notice it. I normally do check all fluids levels once a month and had not noticed anything abnormal. Neither did the brake warning light came on. Braking on the Ikon is anyways poor so maybe I didnt notice if it was getting worse.

[latentpotential]

Has the issue been correctly identified? Since you are facing loss of fluid and pressure, the leak could be anywhere in the braking system, including the joints or the hoses (rodents perhaps?). I say this only because you seem to maintain your vehicle.

[sudev]

Without pictures answering why failure occurred is just speculation.

Thank god this happened where it did and not under emergency braking situation.

[supertinu]

Originally Posted by latentpotential

Has the issue been correctly identified? Since you are facing loss of fluid and pressure, the leak could be anywhere in the braking system, including the joints or the hoses (rodents perhaps?). I say this only because you seem to maintain your vehicle.

Originally Posted by sudev

Without pictures answering why failure occurred is just speculation.

Thank god this happened where it did and not under emergency braking situation.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to take pictures yet since I was not physically present when I left the car at the neighborhood garage. Based on his input, the failure is with the piston which is part of the caliper and responsible for creating pressure on the brake pads. According to him this would require a caliper replacement and not repairable.

When the failure happened, all the leakage happened at the front right wheel only. Entire rim on the inside was completely soaked with brake oil.

I will try and take some pics when I goto Ford A.S.S. Will happen next weekend since I am travelling this week.

[DWind]

Did the brake caliper fail only on one wheel? If it was only one wheel should'nt the other set ( I believe the plumbing for break fluid is done in FL + RR, FR+RL combination?) have held breaking pressure? I thought such a situation can happen only when the Master / Slave cylinder fails like it happened once on my Camry in US.

[a4anurag]

Originally Posted by supertinu

Based on his input, the failure is with the piston which is part of the caliper and responsible for creating pressure on the brake pads. According to him this would require a caliper replacement and not repairable.

When the failure happened, all the leakage happened at the front right wheel only. Entire rim on the inside was completely soaked with brake oil.

Did you notice any rust or cracks on the caliper?

This problem could have started long back and it just gave way on that day.

Do you have a good rapport at the F.A.S.S? If yes ask them to click some pictures and send it across to you.

Anurag.

[arnabchak]

I too had a similar experience but the failure of Brake callipers needs to be re-verified.
It is not very common to have brake calliper failures.

Loss of brake fluid indicates some leak in the braking system.

I had to change my brake lining due to age.

[sudev]

Mainly it is the O ring around the pistons that fail in cylinders. Why should that render caliper unfit? Unless car was driven with piston wedged out and created wera tear to cylinder.

[supertinu]

Originally Posted by a4anurag

Did you notice any rust or cracks on the caliper?

Anurag.

Originally Posted by arnabchak

I too had a similar experience but the failure of Brake callipers needs to be re-verified.
It is not very common to have brake calliper failures.

Loss of brake fluid indicates some leak in the braking system.

I had to change my brake lining due to age.

Originally Posted by sudev

Mainly it is the O ring around the pistons that fail in cylinders. Why should that render caliper unfit? Unless car was driven with piston wedged out and created wera tear to cylinder.

Hey Folks, finally last weekend I took the car to the Ford A.S.S for checkout. It turns out the problem is only with the rubber hose that connects the metallic pipe to the caliper. It had burst open probably due to aging effect. I have asked them to replace the hose on the front left side as well since I don't want to see similar issue popping up on the other tire later. The brake pads are also due for replacement. I have asked them to do all of it one shot. The hose is out of stock, so the car is lying at the A.S.S waiting for parts to arrive. Since i went on sat, i sat and personally inspected the issue.

It seems like my trusted neighborhood garage guy didnt even remove the wheel to see what was going on . I brought it to his notice and he was very apologetic about the screw up by his guys.

[arunphilip]

Originally Posted by supertinu

I took the car to the Ford A.S.S for checkout. It turns out the problem is only with the rubber hose that connects the metallic pipe to the caliper. It seems like my trusted neighborhood garage guy didnt even remove the wheel to see what was going on . I brought it to his notice and he was very apologetic about the screw up by his guys.

My my, a Ford A.S.S. that does better diagnosis than an FNG Which Ford did you go to?

[latentpotential]

Originally Posted by latentpotential

Has the issue been correctly identified? Since you are facing loss of fluid and pressure, the leak could be anywhere in the braking system, including the joints or the hoses (rodents perhaps?). I say this only because you seem to maintain your vehicle.

Originally Posted by supertinu

Hey Folks, finally last weekend I took the car to the Ford A.S.S for checkout. It turns out the problem is only with the rubber hose that connects the metallic pipe to the caliper. It had burst open probably due to aging effect. ....

Thanks for the information. I had suspected the same considering the other details you had shared. Happy motoring again.

[sudev]

....aging rubber hose....
So perhaps all service schedules should carry replace rubber hoses at XXX time in the advisory. Does any one know if any car schedule has a advisory like this?