I was driving in traffic when I noticed I was pressing the brakes lightly but the car would not slow down.?

Question

The car is a 2000 honda civic automatic. I was going about 20-25mph and I was pressing the breaks. The 1000r/min was also up. I quickly pulled into a large driveway and pressed the breaks really hard and the car came to a loud hault and I put the car in park. The car made a loud broom gurr noise. I then turned off the engine. I called a mechanic to come check the car out (he works a couple of blocks from my parked car). When he arrived like 10 minutes later, he turned on the engine and drove around, nothing seemed to be wrong with the car. He took the car to his shop and ran a scanner on the car to check for any problems. He said nothing was wrong with it. He could not duplicate the problem. I drove the car home and all of a sudden the same thing happened the engine was shaking and the 1000r/min was up to 4 when I was breaking and it took alot of effort to stop the car. I immediately shut it off. What is wrong with the car. The mechanic says nothing is wrong? It is scary!!!!

Answer 1

the car is not slowing down because the engine is not slowing down and your brakes are fighting against the engine that is trying to move the car forward. Its not a brake problem; its a problem of why the engine is not slowing down.

The absolute first thing you want to check is the floor mat on the driver's side. The original Honda Civic floor mats have two hooks at the back to hold the floor mat in place. If the floor mat is not secured by those hooks it will move forward and your accelerator pedal will get caught on it and not release when you take your foot off of the gas. If it doesn't have Honda floor mats, then take whatever is in there out of the car because the non-Honda mats are even more prone to causing this.

If the car still does it with the floor mats removed, then you need to have a technician check the throttle cable and the throttle plates that are moved when you press on the accelerator. If the cable is binding it won't release the accelerator pedal. similarly, if the plates that are moved by the accelerator pedal are binding on carbon then the pedal won't release and the engine won't slow down.

lastly, have your technician check the engine mounts. If you have a broken motor mount the engine can move too much and pull on the throttle cable to cause this condition.

As simple as it may seem, its almost always the floor mat that causes this problem.

hope that helps

Answer 2

check for leaks, ask a mechanic, bleed and clean the brake system, replace the filters, check the brake pads for extensive wearing. If it doesn't work, you got 3 options:

1)Use the handbrake.
2)Replace the faulty part of the BS (or the entire BS).
3)Get a new car.

Answer 3

not sure what the cause of the problem is without seeing the car, but you sound like you are loosing vacuum. you brakes run off of vacuum from the engine, when you lose the vacuum you loose braking power (hard to push the pedal), a loss of vacuum will also make your car run rough (shake) have a mechanic check your vacuum system.

Answer 4

you have power brakes.. and most likely it is in the performance of the power booster or the line leading to it.. it works off of a vacum line from your engine.. you are losing air pressure to your brakes.. the engin is loosing vacum pressure at the same time.. when that happens it will gun the engine.. check for a leak in your line from the engine to your power booster.. I will wager that is where you problem originates.. good luck

Answer 5

If the brakes go to the floor and are squishy it is probably the brake master cylinder.

Answer 6

Take it to a different mechanic.

Take it to a Honda mechanic.

Don't drive it, have it towed.

Post this question in category cars by make, Honda.

Answer 7

you have air in the brake lines and you need to bleed the
brakes. or the engine must be loose.