How much damage did she do to my Mazda 5?? SIGH

[90210]

Wife drove Mazda 5 home (3.5 miles city traffic) post 30 hour shift at hospital. Forgot to release E brake. When parked in garage...car is smoking all over the place (from the brake).

1) Does this mean only e brake is gone (which I can live with)?

OR

2) Has it damaged rear rotors and such?

Appreciate the help. SIGH.

 

[Orangutan]

The e-brake is the rear rotors.

 

[dieseldriver]

eBrake should only affect the rear rotor/pads. Hopefully, you may just have to replace the rear pads and rotors. It's a separate assembly from the rest of the brake system in the car; reason is that when the normal brake system fail, e-brake should still function. This happened to me on my VW where the front brake hose burst and lost the brakes completely going down hill; I used the ebrake to come to a stop.

Wife drove Mazda 5 home (3.5 miles city traffic) post 30 hour shift at hospital. Forgot to release E brake. When parked in garage...car is smoking all over the place (from the brake).

1) Does this mean only e brake is gone (which I can live with)?

OR

2) Has it damaged rear rotors and such?

Appreciate the help. SIGH.

 

[1987cp]

How strange. Mine shows no intention of moving anywhere when the E-brake is applied - nor, for that matter, has anything else I've owned that had a functional E-brake.

Who even carries parts for something brand-new like this? Last time I checked AutoZone.com, I couldn't find ANYTHING for a '12 Five.

 

[torquelover]

Take a drive and then gently pull up on the e-brake while coasting. It should feel smooth. If she roasted them enough, she may have warped the rotors and/or deposited excessive pad material onto the rotor which you would feel as a pulse or shimmy. Take a good look at the rotors, and you might want to pull the calipers to have a look at the pads, too. They should NOT look like this:

Pics are the rear brakes of a Ford Fusion (Mazda 6) where the rear calipers froze.

 

[Nurburgringer]

might be worth getting the transmission checked out.
Couldn't have been good for the torque converter.

 

[ErikO]

The first thing I'd do is change the brake fluid. There's a good chance the fluid may have boiled from the heat. Then I'd have the rotors turned/machine and replace the pads. After that you should be good to go.

 

[90210]

Ok guys, did some tests and got some more details.

-Car was driven total of 2 miles with e brake on

-top speed reached was about 30 mph

To the hand, rear rotors feel fine. However rear pads touch the rotors, whereas front pads have a gap with the rotors (is it normal with your 5?)

-I drove the car gently, pulled ebrake it is working. Parked on hill, with ebrake, ebrake is holding fine.

-Car seems to be driving fine with no issues.

-Car is braking fine with no issues

-Brake fluid seems full and still golden in color.


Current update as of today

 

[Spazum888]

just gonna throw in my 2 cents....
2 miles with the e brake is not a lot. she wasn't going that fast or that far to heat up the pads/rotor to do much dmg, if anything, just some extra stress for the motor, but nothing i would worry about.
just keep a feel for any tugging, jerking feeling when you brake for red lights, but personally, i wouldn't worry about it at all.

now if she hit highway speeds for 15+ mins.... then you might have an issue.

 

[90210]

Car is getting checked out. I couldn't tell any issues driving it, no pulling to any side, brakes fine, no noise, no jerking or tugging.

But will keep ya'll posted. Thanks for the help

 

[Spazum888]

no worries man. let us know if anything came up.

 

[dieseldriver]

Come to think of it, back in the 80's, my dad used to own an Oldsmobile and he used to regularly (accidentally that is) left the parking brakes (what used to be called) depressed while driving. It was rather easy to forget that it was on because the idiot light for the pedal was not so obvious as today, not to mention that it was located all the way on the left side of the driver. I don't recall my dad ever needing to replace any brake components as a result of any premature wear.

 

[90210]

Everybody (not on this forum) scared me saying there was so much smoke that all rubber parts are melted.

Car just spent 2 days at dealer..they say all normal and within spec.

 

[cdnballer]

My first post, so hopefully this will help you in future.

You can easily tell if rotor is bent/warpped when you hit the brakes from highway speeds. If you feel vibration, 99% of the time it's the rotors. If it's really bent you'll feel it @ city speeds slowing down. If pads are worn out in the rear, it doesn't make a huge difference in stopping distance so nothing to worry about, just listen to squeaks. Lots of squeaking usually means time to change pads.

 

[90210]

Thanks. Everything seems normal....and glad got paperwork from dealer saying so as well

 

[DynoBunny]

The first thing I'd do is change the brake fluid. There's a good chance the fluid may have boiled from the heat. Then I'd have the rotors turned/machine and replace the pads. After that you should be good to go.

You're not going to heat up the brake fluid with the ebrake, it uses mechanical linkage to apply pressure, not the hydraulics. Plus I'm pretty sure it just uses the left rear wheel on these so you would only have damaged one side.

OP I wouldn't worry about it, I've done this before on accident, worst case scenario you shortened the rear brake life span.

 

[Embav8r]

Glad to hear that. My wife did the exact thing today. Only about 2 miles until a good Samaritan told her they were smoking! What's with these chicks?(eyeballs)

 

[90210]

Glad to hear that. My wife did the exact thing today. Only about 2 miles until a good Samaritan told her they were smoking! What's with these chicks?(eyeballs)

Women.....

 

[Embav8r]

Funny thing is our other car is a mini cooper with a manual transmission and she rocks that thing! No troubles at all!

 

[Robotazky]

My first post, so hopefully this will help you in future.

You can easily tell if rotor is bent/warpped when you hit the brakes from highway speeds. If you feel vibration, 99% of the time it's the rotors. If it's really bent you'll feel it @ city speeds slowing down. If pads are worn out in the rear, it doesn't make a huge difference in stopping distance so nothing to worry about, just listen to squeaks. Lots of squeaking usually means time to change pads.

Unless you are racing your car or have a defective rotor, vibration when breaking is not warped rotors. Your quote of 99% may be true, but it's not due to warping. It's due to material from the pads deposited on the rotors. Any time you have vibration while breaking you should sand the rotors with a 180 or so grit. Sand it to where it's not shiny and you know all the pad material on the rotor is gone. Trust me, if you're resurfacing rotors just because you feel a vibration while braking, you're throwing money down the drain and reducing the rotor's ability to do its job. Just sand them. It has never failed me once in 23 years of driving.