Front Brakes Locking

Hello all Toyota experts. I need your help! I have a Toyota Camry 2001 LE that has been driving me nuts for past month or so. I don't know what the problem is. Here's the scoop, my front brakes lock up hardcore after excessive heat or acceleration. The brake pedal becomes really tough and ends up stalling the car. I've tried flooring it (stupid me) only to conclude in wearing down my brake pads which caused white smoke to shoot out from my two front tires. Eventually after a while the tires are locked and I'm stuck. I took my car to a nearby Toyota dealership and even they couldn't find out what the problem was because of the shape of some certain parts. So they said that to figure out what's wrong with the car, they're going to have to charge me $600 to replace the roters, calipars, brake pads, as well as a full out brake bleed. And that's only a start, there might be "additional repairs" as well. I said screw the repairs and brought my car back home. The brakes again locked up on me and I had to wait about a half an hour or so for the brakes to loosen up before reaching home. Recently my cousin (used to be a mechanic for Sears) and I went out and bought new calipars, roters and brake pads for under $160 dollars. We took out all the old stuff and replaced everything brand new. We also bled the front brakes. Again the problem still occurred. It feels as if after stepping on the brakes for a while they don't release back. They lock the tires and I burn out my brakes. What could this problem be and how should we go about fixing it? What should we check first? Please help me out!

I'd check the master cylinder, and the brake booster first...

If the master or brake booster turn out not to be your problem you might try replacing the rubber brake hoses leading to the calipers. I have seen them get soft and collapse internally and not allow the fluid to run back out of the calipers. This would be a fairly cheap thing to try if your cousin would help you again. Change out the hoses and bleed the system and then go for a ride.

Good luck.

Mike

thanks so much for the replies, we're going to check out master cylinder (if possible) and brake booster as well as replace the hoses first since they're not that expensive and do a full out bleed. Thanks for the help I'll get back to you guys after the check up.