FlightMan

Engine ground run test gone bad. Brand new Ethiad A346. 9 persons onboard, luckily no fatalities.

Vampire

Definitely an 'oh ****' moment for all on board, could have been much worse.

cookstar

iTrader: (6)

Jeez

SVXNUT

Blew a brake line on a van once on the Mway. Drift to stop on the hard shoulder!!!. New pants please.

Probein

Had the front break of my little 125cc scooter go when i was 19... rofl, I shat myself so badly. Didn't help that it was pissing it down, the roads were slippery, and I had to rely on my rear break (which was terrible) all the way to work.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Wrote off a 306 a while back Front pads had recently been changed by some monkey who used the most awful crappy pads available (unknown to me). Rear pads were still the OEM items.

I came around a corner and needed to brake hard. Front brakes were already hot, so the additional energy going into the pad made them fade. Only answer was to push the pedal harder, which locked the rear brakes (no ABS). Basically the equivalent of pulling your handbrake on while doing 50+ round a bend.

Oh well, we live and learn. Buy cars with good brakes and ABS

TopBanana

Can't have been that bad if you continued the journey

Brendan Hughes

Drove a 7.5 tonne truck with the brake pads worn down to the metal. Owner kept "forgetting" to change them. Finally I came round a corner with a scaffold truck in front stopped at lights. Stood on the air brakes but still ran into him at 10mph. Result - twenty circles embedded in the front of my truck, one broken backboard for him. He couldn't even be bothered to exchange insurance details . Owner changed the pads quite soon after that.

Used to use engine braking on my Dutton as the brakes weren't so hot on that either.

Maybe a good thing I never learned to fly

HankScorpio

I broke a front disk once - effin scary as was braking from 70 to 30 for a tight corner and 30 limit!
Crawled back to the garage with horrible scraping noise, using the handbrake when required, bloke was surprised as he'd never seen one before.

But I bet not as scary as that plane!
I was once on one that came in to Le Bourget in the extreme wet and there didn't seem to be much slowing down and the taxiways (???) were whipping past pretty quickly. We went round the last one at a real tilt and that was bad enough, the one from the pics must have been real scary!!

Probein

Heh, it really was.. I just had no other option (other than ditching the bike there and walking the 4 miles left to work).

daddyscoob

had my brakes go in a Mini on the exit slip. Got home - a mile - with handbrake. This is the bit hard to believe...... the rubber cv boot had worn through a metal brake pipe!!!

I don't make a habit of driving with no brakes and this happened @ 01.00 so roads deserted.

logiclee

I also had a mini scare, a 1100 Clubman in 1987.

Brakes failed totaly and fluid contaminated one rear drum.

I was approaching a red light down hill at around 45mph. There were no cars waiting at the lights, I had the hand brake full on with one wheel locked and my hand on the horn.

Sailed straight through the red light straight in between all the crossing traffic that were doing 40-60mph.

It would have made a good black and white movie clip the timing was that good.

Cheers
Lee

fast bloke

hmmmm... mini brakes.... you don't use them for slowing down do you?




Once (in 1990) arrived flat out (about 50..... i only had 3 cylinders working) at a set of lights in a 1971 1275GT. Stomped on the brakes - nothing (as usual) stomped about 5 more times (as usual) and then only the driver side brake kicked in (not usual) - Veered violentely across the road before pulling a 180 and driving through the lights backwards. I can still remember the thudding of my heart as i waited for the artic to flatten me..



(p.s. - It missed..... obviously)

Shark Man

Had a Subaru ABS moment:

ABS kicks in = no brakes


The consequence of using fast road pads


In my uni years my mate was giving me a lift, a few days before he had new brake hoses on his clio. They came loose.

He asked me why the handbrake light was stuck on, I said he was probably low on fluid. Oh, he said, will give it a look when I get back home.

Halfway back home, he says "****, no brakes" I said your joking...then I look and see his leg with teh pedal to teh floor. Ohhh crap


Thanfully the handbrake worked and teh garage who did teh work was on the way back, so we dumped it there and took the bus the rest of the way


I've also had some mates who have had some horror stories caused by using braided steel hoses instead of rubber - the PTFE inner hose fractures, as they aren't designed to twist and work with the amount of suspension travel found on a road car, conseqentually they should be replaced every 5 years regardless......funny, I bet many people with SS hoses don't bother...until one day...emergency stop, hose pops, and oh dear, no brakes, at least with rubber hoses you can easily tell when they are on their last legs. Explains why SS braided hoses are banned in some countries.

NotoriousREV

Actually, that is usual. My last Mini (14 years ago) only had the drivers side rear brake working. Drove it for months like that

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Mini again, only working brakes one side, spun.

Set fire to some cheap brake pads on a Capri.

Cousin had a disk shear off the hub on his 2.3 Vauxhall Magnum.

StickyMicky

upgraded the brakes on a nova 12 years ago and forgot to add the little copper washers on the banjo pipe, by the time i got to the "test" roundabout the fluid was gone

screetch, bang, wallop

Leslie

Once had the brake fluid boil on the way into Druids at Brands when the pedal went to the floor! My right foot became a blur as I pumped furiously and I just managed to slow the car down enough to scrabble round. After the race BP gave me some high boiling point fluid and all was ok after that.

Les

DaveD

iTrader: (2)

Seem to be quite a few mini stories in this thread - let me add another one!

I was navigating on the Torbay road rally a few years ago in a mini that was litterally a shell in the driver's back yard 5 days before the event and MoT'd about 3 hours before signing on!
We started off reasonably well, but it soon became apparent that the brakes needed bleeding. On a few occasions the mini was completely sideways when we should have been braking in a straight line. Eventually only the front off side brake appeared to be working, and the driver was constantly pumping the pedal to keep some pressure in the system.
The worst part was heading down a straight piece of B-road at about 100mph (speedo off the clock), looking for a square junction left into a narrow lane. I spotted the slot up ahead and shouted to Dave to take the turn. He slammed on the brakes and we completed a 180 degree spin, ending up on the grass verge on the opposite side of the road about 5 yds past the turning. At the next time control, the controller pulled out a large piece of bush that we'd collected in the front wing during our spin.

Things continued to get worse. The alternator belt started slipping, which meant that when we went through a shower of rain, there wasn't enough juice to run the wipers, headlights and spark all 4 cylinders - sonething had to be turned off. We drove for about 2 miles on sidelights (and no lights on one hill) until the rain stopped.

The petrol halt turned into some minor service area - a bit of panel beating, brake bleeding and belt tensioning. Just as well Dave had left his full tool kit in the back of the car!

PS. Not been a good week for A340s - one slid off the end of a runway in Equador last week.....