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Old 10-06-2008, 09:45 PM   #33
jammies
Basement Chicken Choker
 
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Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: In a land without pants, or war, or want. But mostly we care about the pants.
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Originally Posted by ken0042 View Post
Also check your owner's manual or with your mechanic. The GMs I've been driving since the mid 80's have all had dual master cylinders (the thing-ma-bob that stores brake fluid.) So if I have a brake line cut or blow out on me, I would have 2 more chances to use the opposite brakes (front or rear depending on what gets cut) before completely losing brake pressure. But you would also have to recognize it; most common symptom is the brakes being very squishy or the pedal going almost all the way to the floor.
I had my brakes go once just like that - they worked the first two times I used 'em, but after that it was pedal all the way to the floor. Of course it happened one day when I was working a 6 AM shift, so I didn't clue in to the brakes being reeeeeeaaaaaaalllll soft as I was in zombie mode; on the plus side it was 5:50 AM, so there wasn't any traffic when I sailed thru a red light, and it did wake me right the fata up.

It's an extremely strange feeling to be in control of a car that works fine except that you can't stop it. Luckily I was going slightly uphill and I guided the car around a corner and used the emergency to stop, but for a minute there I was freakin' out pretty bad.
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