[The Day My Brakes went out]

[The Day My Brakes went out]

   11:25 AM       Laura

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So, Kristen moved in.  And then disappeared to South Carolina so I have had the apartment to myself for a couple days.  I needed to get my room set up, so I called Socorro (My best friend, in case you don't know), and asked her for assistance in decorating and setting up my room. (Which, it looks great right now, and its not even done yet.)  Anyways, I went to get her, and we needed to make a stop at Walmart, and I found a bookshelf for $25, which was really great.  We were also going to make a quick stop at Burlingtons for other cute stuff. Karl, her husband was working and needed food, and he was just a little more down the street than Burlington, so I agreed to go help get him food.  

Now, for those of you who haven't been in my car for a bit, my brakes have been grinding. Only the passenger side though.  We entered the Wendy's parking lot, and pulled up by the drive through, and heard a loud crack, and the grinding was suddenly much worse than it has been.  Then the car didn't want to move, and our first thought that one of my tires had gone flat.  We got out and walked around the car, and there was no flat tire.  We got back in line, and pulled up to the drive through speaker and as I pushed on the brakes, my foot went all the way through, and the car kept going.  I immediately pulled up on the Emergency Brake, and we stopped.  I was breathing  hard, and Socorro started laughing, and we pulled away from the speaker into a dead area of the parking lot.  Again, as I pushed the brakes, my car wasn't stopping.  It did ROLL to a stop though. Lol.  So, who did I think of first, Well, Chris was partially my car guy, and, well, he was in Virginia.  So I called Danny.  We were just up the hill from the apartments.

*ring ring*
Danny: Yo Diggity Dog!
Laura: Danny, I need you to come to Wendy's quickly please
Danny *suddenly serious* I'm coming.  What happened?

Sheesh, if I said that to my mom, she would have needed me to explain the entire situation before she even made a move for the car. Socorro went in to get food for Karl who was working across the street, and I waited for Danny to come.  He came, she left to give the food to Karl and get the car, and Danny and I lifted my hood.  Originally, I was thinking that I had no brake fluid.  There was no pressure behind the pedal.  So, opening up the fluid part, there was some, but not alot. Which was weird. So we ran to a grocery store, bought some brake fluid, and ran back.  Replaced the fluid, and then turned the car on.  The brakes were KIND of working, but not really.  I called Ben.  Ben Quilter, my modern mechanic and life saver.  He and Caitlynn were at Sizzlers, and volunteered to come help.

They came, lifted my car up, and pulled the tire off. Ben, who had already been laughing at my terminology, and my attempts at fixing this, started laughing.  There was a nice puddle of Brake fluid on the ground under my wheel, so something was leaking there.  It was decided that there was a crack in the Caliper.  It was already known that I needed new brake pads. Already I was being made fun of for my pronunciation of Caliber instead of Caliper. Or whatever it is.  After calling Checker, (Checkers?) they gave me the number of a mobile guy in the area, who could help me.

The guy came, and he quoted me 345 to get everything fixed.  I needed new brake pads, new rotor, and a new caliper cause mine was cracked.  Pretty much everything you see in the picture here that ben is poking, had to be replaced. In fact, he even went so far as to say: "No one lets their pads get down that far..." Well, I'm special.

I had it back the next day.  Everything was fixed.

I'm just lucky it happened when I was in a parking lot, and not going high speeds on the freeway.  (Apparently my ball joint was loose.  Which means my wheel could have come off at any time. )
  P.S. Check out my 101 in 1001  and see how I'm doing!