Camry 2003 Brake Failed

[bcris3]

Last night my 2003 Camry's (XLE model) brakes would not budge down at all when I tried to press on the brakes. Luckily I was going slow and there wasn't anyone else on the road. I stamped hard on the brakes a few time and the pedal wouldn't go down at all. In what seemed eternity, as I was about to press the emergency brake down, the pedal depressed with much resistence. My car is now in the driveway and I am having it towed to the dealer. Does anyone know of any reports of this? A friend checked the brake fluid and under the car's hood, but didn't see any problems. Since this happened on Christmas Eve, I will call the dealer first thing on the 26th, but now I am scared to death to ever trust this car again. I have experienced when my brakes went down to the floor, but never when the pedal is stuck and won't budge. Nothing was around the floor of the car, so there wasn't anything obstructing the pedal.

Any comments would be appreciated.

[jamesholden]

Last night my 2003 Camry's (XLE model) brakes would not budge down at all when I tried to press on the brakes. Luckily I was going slow and there wasn't anyone else on the road. I stamped hard on the brakes a few time and the pedal wouldn't go down at all. In what seemed eternity, as I was about to press the emergency brake down, the pedal depressed with much resistence. My car is now in the driveway and I am having it towed to the dealer. Does anyone know of any reports of this? A friend checked the brake fluid and under the car's hood, but didn't see any problems. Since this happened on Christmas Eve, I will call the dealer first thing on the 26th, but now I am scared to death to ever trust this car again. I have experienced when my brakes went down to the floor, but never when the pedal is stuck and won't budge. Nothing was around the floor of the car, so there wasn't anything obstructing the pedal.

Any comments would be appreciated.

I'm not really sure what could have caused the problem, stone in the disc? Air in the system?

What do you mean by the emergency brake? Do you mean the foot operated parking brake for when stationary?

[bcris3]

I did mean the foot operated parking brake for when stationary which I called the emergency brake. Since I couldn't get the brake pedal to budge, I was going to press the foot operated parking brake to try to stop the car. I wasn't sure how to stop the car (automatic transmission) when the brakes were failing. (Today I have gone out to start my car and while I am in park, there has been another time when the brake pedal was stuck and wouldn't budge down a bit. I will have this car towed tomorrow to the dealer.)

[dvang]

bcris3,

did you find out what the problem was with the brake failure?

My wife has a 92 camry and it has worked fine until this winter...

Same problem. I experienced it first hand puting the car in reverse and could not brake! The brake pedal was litteraly hard to press down. I was lucky enough to press on the brake(little that I could) and shift to park. The brake works again after shifting around.

My wife had a similar episode, right out of the parking log, she reversed out and braked fine. She then put it in drive to go forward, but could not brake during a turn. Luckily she was able to pull hard on the E-brake and stop in time!

I have a feeling that it's the Master cylinder being stuck.

If it were the calipers, atleast one of the calipers of 4 shoudl have worked... just a guess.

I was just outside trying to shift back and forth to re-discover the problem, but the brake problem didn't happen....this seem sporatic.

-Dan

[tristars]

Hi Guys,

I have the Camry 2003...and I did have problem with the brake ...it is working not property ..I did call my dealer but they said ...a lot of people are complaning about this but this is the design issue ..they did not fix ....I did send the complaning to Toyota Corporation ...they send me to National Center for Dispute Settlement ...I will fill out this form and send back to them later ...I don't know is anybody has same problem lile me!!!

[bcris3]

I had the car towed to the dealer and they couldn't recreate the problem. They checked the brakes, the vacuum hose, the master cylinder. I video taped (I convinced them to give me permission) the conversation with them, as I was very unhappy with their attitude and comments to bring the car back again if the problem re-occurs.

I filed filed the complaint online with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (CONSUMER COMPLAINT: ODI Case Number: 10002058 )