What to do if your brakes fail?

[Pinger]

Like a lot of you, I don't understand how a "car guy" has ZERO car-guy instincts.
My dad had a turd brown '78 Buick Regal. Stock white wall tires and wire hubcaps, but had a mild 400 sbc under the hood. I was surprising a guy in a '80 Trans Am when the throttle stuck. I turned it off and stopped safely. I was 16.

I guess it depends on how the individual copes in a stressful situation - whether overwhelmed or with mental capacity spare to assess and deal with the situation at hand. I'd like to think I'm the latter - but don't feel like testing the theory!

 

[yevgenievich]

As UT pointed out, he could easily have curbed it, but instead he was hoping to magically find a way out of it. Replacing a control arm, wheel, and fender would have been a whole lot cheaper.

Back a long time ago I had to go with throwing a car in to the curb as I realized brakes were not slowing me down enough and crash with another vehicle was imminent. It does work

 

[Erik the Awful]

I don't understand how a "car guy" has ZERO car-guy instincts.

Some guys are "car guys", but the only wrench they know is the wallet wrench. Those guys haven't had to drive their own broke junk. Those of us who've had to pinch pennies and rebuild our own junkyard parts have driven some busted garbage. If we're lucky we also had a daily driver so that we didn't have to drive busted garbage to work. And then some of us chose to drive that busted garbage to work to show off to our coworkers, who cringed and said, "You came in that?"

 

[someotherguy]

There are people that like cars/trucks but aren't very mechanical. I know it's kinda weird.

Yep. Those are known as "car girls"

yeah yeah edit, no offense intended to the women that actually know how to turn a wrench. I know y'all exist. But there's probably less of y'all than these so-called car "guys" that have no idea..

 

[someotherguy]

Some guys are "car guys", but the only wrench they know is the wallet wrench. Those guys haven't had to drive their own broke junk. Those of us who've had to pinch pennies and rebuild our own junkyard parts have driven some busted garbage. If we're lucky we also had a daily driver so that we didn't have to drive busted garbage to work. And then some of us chose to drive that busted garbage to work to show off to our coworkers, who cringed and said, "You came in that?"

Decades ago.. a story from that same single-reservoir system brake hose failure vehicle. '63 Suburban. This truck was the biggest pile of.. OK, it was yellow/white two tone, primer red fender and header panel, primer gray splotches all over it, huge rusted out areas all over (was originally from a rust belt area), had Toyota bucket seats attached to a bare metal/rust floor, the factory rubber mat had been crumbling away for years, etc. No grille and the headlight adjusters broken years ago so zip ties were holding the headlight buckets in place. Etc. you get the idea, a real sh@twagon. Had a swapped-in 350 and TH400; ran great.

So of course this was my daily driver. At this particular time I worked at a very high-volume clone PC shop owned by a couple Vietnamese dudes called themselves Louis and Robert, crazy dudes, couple real jokers. Well they get the idea I should go pick up a visiting VIP from a major vendor - turns out dude is some high-level executive for Orchid Technology, well-known back then for their graphics cards. Staying at some super-fancy hotel with this huge circle drive, I parked down around the curve and walked up to meet him in the lobby. I greet him and say, Louis and Robert have sent the limo, it's waiting outside; let's go..

As we walk, and walk, and walk I can see this poor guy is starting to wonder WTF is going on, probably beginning to sweat already in his nice suit and this horrible Houston heat. We round the curve and I march right up to the Suburban and open the passenger door for him with a huge CREAK and POP of the flapping fender against it, motion for him to climb in, as he stares with the most surprised look.. and a long pause.. then smiles real big and in a heavy Asian (I think the dude was Chinese but don't wanna assume) accent says, "Oh.. TEXAS!!!" and jumps right in.

Louis and Robert were literally waiting outside the whole time so they could see us pull up and laugh at the guy as he got out. Big fun.

Oh, and I guess I have officially become the old dude that tells long, rambling stories. Oh well.

Richard