It's coming right for us!

[feren]

[Edit @1902 12/8/09: Made it home safely. The I-88 merge was crappy and gave me a few scares in different spots, but got through it without incident. The truck is parked in the driveway and waiting for me to look at it tomorrow.]

When I left the Wood Dale office tonight the Expedition had what can only be described as a catastrophic brake failure. As in: push brake pedal to the floor with sickening ease and the truck doesn't slow appreciably. Also, on the dash, the BRAKE light is on, glowing angrily in red at me.

You can bet I am not driving to work tomorrow. But I do have to get home to figure out what went wrong.

It has been and is going to continue to be a very interesting commute home.

Right now I am on the shoulder at the I-88 interchange on Southbound I-355, preparing myself for the challenge of very carefully negotiating the merging traffic. This is the worst spot of all, really.

Once I have done that I've got about fifteen miles to go before I reach my driveway. Thank god for downshifting, parking brakes and hazard lights.

Comments

[points.livejournal.com]

Er... ah.. erk? Be careful, please.

And I'll have to whack Boo for cutting the lines too early. ;)

[feren.livejournal.com]

As things stand right now my parents get all the insurance money, so I called my dad to tell him what was going on and (teasingly) chide him for trying to get my insurance money by doing something so lame as cutting my brakes.

[doomsey.livejournal.com]

glad you made it home safely.

driving home with failed brakes is pretty ballsy. If it happened to me, I'd be calling a tow truck...

[arphalia.livejournal.com]

Oh jesus! Post when you get home so we know you're not stuck IN traffic. o_o

[feren.livejournal.com]

I updated the "It's coming right for us!" post this comment is in by putting an EDIT at the very top stating I made it home safely.

Thanks for your concern, hon. *squeeze*

[spoothbrush.livejournal.com]

I have nightmares like that. Yikes!

[feren.livejournal.com]

I have nightmares of dying in elevators that race to the top and then plummet to the bottom, which for me is terrifying because I have no control in that sort of situation. This, for me, was annoying and worrying! But not terrifying. What's the difference? In this case I had some modicum of control between road shoulders, downshifting and the parking brake.

[spoothbrush.livejournal.com]

$20 says you're also a much better driver than me.

[panzier.livejournal.com]

Aww, was there just the other night! heh! There are new type brake lines, they're coated end to end and supposedly won't corrode as fast as the old style, they do look good and time will tell.

[feren.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd seen that news this morning. I couldn't help but think of the irony and similarity at several points during the trip.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

I had the brakes go out like that once on a Camry, on the way to work. I made it the rest of the way by creeping along at low speed and using engine braking and rubbing against the curb to slow down.

Then I called a towing company, and eventually sold the car when the repair would have involved replacing most of the hoses in the brake system. At least we got 170K miles out of the thing.