brakes gave out on highway

[Jack17]

hey guys, the car is in the shop now, but I wanted to get some perspective from people who don't have an incentive to sell me stuff too.

I have to say this was one of the scariest things ever. I was driving down the highway during rush hour at about 50mph when traffic came to an abrupt stop. I hit the brakes, and they did almost nothing. The pedal went straight to the floor with almost no resistance.

My first thought was fluid leaking, but I checked the master cylinder and there was plenty in it. Also, there was nothing leaking from the car.

Another thing I noticed was that when I turned the car off, pumping the brakes a few times built pressure back up on the pedal, but as soon as I turned the car back on, the pedal went straight to the floor again.

Any ideas? Thank you so much!

[tempfixit]

Bad master clyinder.

[danielsatur]

Loosing hydrawlic brake pressure, check rear wheel brake cylinders, and front brake calipers for oil leaks.

[Tony Silva]

ruptured brake booster diaphram........this will typically go bad before any hard mechanical parts.....but post the results after you get your car back...I love finding that I was wrong...just cause it shows that I'm still learning more.

[Jack17]

The repair place tried to sell me $1329 worth of repairs (new rotors, calipers, pads, etc) but the issue that caused the incident was a rotted front-rear steel line, apparently. He said that seeing fluid in the master cylinder was divided into two parts, so the reason it might have been full to my vision was because of that.

Anyone have experience replacing front-rear steel brake lines? I have a little experience with maintenance and a good repair manual, but I'm trying to figure out if I could do this because after I get it fixed, I plan on selling the car (going off to college). So I don't want to spend more money than I need to to make it reasonably safe. The hoses at least seemed like an easy repair from the description in my manual.

[danielsatur]

The last appraised brake job was $600, because the rear wheel brake cylinder was gone.

It made all the brakes look bad, we just replaced the rear wheel cylinder, new pads, and cleaned the oil off the rear brake drum with brake cleaner. $25

Yes - Brake lines are easy!
Did they charge you for the diagnose of the bad brake line?

You probably still got life in your brake pads, if DIY and need new brakes + rotors, see http://www.ebay.com