Complete brake failure

[Jessicak79]

So, yesterday a friend, who has worked on cars his whole life, changed front rotor and pads.i work delivering things with my car and luckily i made it throught he evening in the mountains. On my way home i heard rubbing from brakes and rotor on driver side. I tapped a few times thinking they were stuck, suddenly the noise vanishes completely. I get to the top of the hill and as im decnding i step on the brakes slightly bc at the bottom was a stop light. My brakes completely failed. Literally nothing happened pedal to the floor. I stepped on ebrake and that just kinds fish tailed me , meanwhile im still trying for my foot pedal and somehow near the bottom i managed to thankfully stop the vehicle. I put it in park and had it towed home . my question is, bc i once had a pad fall off in past, wasnt the same type of brake set up though and all it did was grind. Today they brakes work . have to put pad back on, but they do work. Could total brake failure happen simply from losing a pad??

 

[Rick]

With the pad gone the piston has farther to travel before it stops which means the pedal keeps going down. If the piston isn't up against something firmly you won't have a firm pedal. I've never heard of a pad falling out before, so I really can't say for sure what would happen other than it can't be good

The reason you finally got a pedal is because you took the "slack" out of the hydraulic system by pumping the brakes and forcing the piston into something.

 

[Jessicak79]

Thanl you , my main reason for trying to figure out if it was because the pad fell off is bc im going to be extremely afraid to drive her for awhile fearing no brakes! But it does make sense i mean pad falls off and no brakes , sounds like one prob caused my another. When i was 16 a pad fell off on my shadow, but it just grind super bad! Lmao and i love my explorer, it was my dads then my sister and now mine! And shes awesome for how old she is..but this scared the hell out of me!

 

[massacre]

On my first ‘94, I lost brakes 3 times in a month due to rotting brake lines. One time resulted in a crash but nobody was hurt.
I am familiar with that sick feeling in your stomach when that pedal goes to the floor.
Glad you weren’t hurt!

 

[Jessicak79]

Man.. I hope its not that. I have to think i lost the brakes bc the pad fell off only bc i have never had anything like that happen with her, and it just so happen to happen at the exact moment the scraping stopped (which o assume is when the pad fell off bc the scraping stopped) a moment later no brakes! I dont believe too much in coincidence, not this type anyway lol
They fell off bc the guy pit the wrong pads on.

 

[94Sport5]

First off, is there any brake fluid leaking? Is the brake reservoir low or empty? If no, then YES it's definitely possible for a pad to fall out or fall out and sieze the caliper piston! A couple months back I had a brake pad on my passenger side fall out (it was the inner one) and it actually got stuck in-between the rotor and caliper piston, completely preventing it from moving.
When this happened, I heard the pad start grinding against the rotor and I lost my brake pressure completely as you did. (Good thing the rear brakes worked still, pressing a little harder with no pressure the vehicle would still be able to stop, slowly haha.) The same time this started though, the front end started wobbling slightly. The next time I came up to a stoplight and got going again, the vehicle felt increasingly wobbly and the scraping sound was getting worse, which felt scary so I was trying to limp it home. I gave the brakes one good hard press at around 15 mph and I heard a metal tang under the vehicle and suddenly the scrape stopped, and my brake pressure returned and no more wobble!
Later on, I went back and looked for the part and found it, and sure enough it was the pad itself. Good thing she spit the problem out on her own! I actually drove it with one pad on that side for a good month before I was able to replace all wheel bearings, rotors, calipers and pads on both sides.
I'd take your front wheels & hubs off and inspect the calipers and pads. You might see the problem right away! Still, have someone work the brakes and watch to see if the calipers move correctly to troubleshoot what's going on. If the pistons move like they are supposed to and you haven't lost any fluid your master cylinder/booster SHOULD be good.
It could be possible the pad is still there but blocking the caliper piston from moving like what happened in my case, but your explorer hasn't spit it out thus your brakes still go to the floor. Either way, this is an easy fix for our explorers, but all the parts add up if you plan to replace things in pairs (as you should in most cases). Hope this helps in some way!

 

[Mbrooks420]

If you said he changed the front rotor, and not the front *pair* of rotors I wouldn’t let this friend work on my cars.

That’s probably also the case if the pad “fell off”. You can work on cars a long time, but do it poorly.

You also don’t want to drive the truck and further than into a garage, as you’ll ruin your caliper (which very well might have already happened). If so replace the calipers in pairs, and not just the damaged one.

 

[Centaurious]

If the person doing the work didn't support the caliper but let it dangle by the hose damage may have been done to the hose.