deweysmith
Full Access Members
so, I was driving down from Lethbridge, AB back to Salt Lake City, UT for Christmas, and it got really cold in Montana.
That’s about -28°F for all you Americans.
Anyway, I was chugging along just fine when I heard a strange noise from the front end, it might have even been road noise, it was so faint, but it could have been the IWEs. I heard a faint clunk, almost like the IWEs make sometimes when selecting 4A (something I had been doing frequently with as bad as the roads were in some spots) and the noise stopped. I thought nothing of it until about 20 seconds later when I heard a chime, the parking brake symbol lit up, and the display read “CHECK BRAKE SYSTEM.”
This is not something you want to read at 3am in the Montana mountains when it’s -34°C outside and you’re rolling down I-15 at 75mph.
I braked to cancel cruise control, and see if I had any brakes at all. I did, but I clearly had no assist at all, as it was very difficult. I put on my hazard lights (for no reason, there was no one for miles) and started looking for a place where I could safely pull over. Just as quickly as it appeared, though, the light went out, and the message disappeared.
I braked again, harder this time (much to the chagrin of my sleeping passengers) and I had regained some assist. I toggled 4A and 4H and they worked fine. All seemed well, so I pressed on to the next exit.
Once safely off the freeway I popped the hood and checked, the brake fluid was nearly at MAX (both sets of brakes are new within the last 10k km) and none of the rotors were scored or damaged at all (no evidence of rubbing or heat damage.)
This was all Sunday morning, and we finished the 6 more hours of driving just fine (after a brief nap with the engine idling because it was SO cold) and we’ve driven all this week with no issues.
My theory is between the ridiculous cold and temperature swings (it would go from -34 to -18 or so in just a couple of minutes in some spots) and the altitude changes, the truck didn’t maintain proper vacuum for a few seconds there causing the brake booster to fail briefly and the IWEs to lock without being commanded.
Does anyone else have any ideas??
That’s about -28°F for all you Americans.
Anyway, I was chugging along just fine when I heard a strange noise from the front end, it might have even been road noise, it was so faint, but it could have been the IWEs. I heard a faint clunk, almost like the IWEs make sometimes when selecting 4A (something I had been doing frequently with as bad as the roads were in some spots) and the noise stopped. I thought nothing of it until about 20 seconds later when I heard a chime, the parking brake symbol lit up, and the display read “CHECK BRAKE SYSTEM.”
This is not something you want to read at 3am in the Montana mountains when it’s -34°C outside and you’re rolling down I-15 at 75mph.
I braked to cancel cruise control, and see if I had any brakes at all. I did, but I clearly had no assist at all, as it was very difficult. I put on my hazard lights (for no reason, there was no one for miles) and started looking for a place where I could safely pull over. Just as quickly as it appeared, though, the light went out, and the message disappeared.
I braked again, harder this time (much to the chagrin of my sleeping passengers) and I had regained some assist. I toggled 4A and 4H and they worked fine. All seemed well, so I pressed on to the next exit.
Once safely off the freeway I popped the hood and checked, the brake fluid was nearly at MAX (both sets of brakes are new within the last 10k km) and none of the rotors were scored or damaged at all (no evidence of rubbing or heat damage.)
This was all Sunday morning, and we finished the 6 more hours of driving just fine (after a brief nap with the engine idling because it was SO cold) and we’ve driven all this week with no issues.
My theory is between the ridiculous cold and temperature swings (it would go from -34 to -18 or so in just a couple of minutes in some spots) and the altitude changes, the truck didn’t maintain proper vacuum for a few seconds there causing the brake booster to fail briefly and the IWEs to lock without being commanded.
Does anyone else have any ideas??
