I got a wierd call from the wife today. She called me stating that our 1999 C280(80,000 miles) was moving sluggish. She was only about a mile from home so she kept driving. She had only drove down to the store, which is about 2 miles away. She said it wasn't running sluggish on her way to the store, only started on her way home. When she pulled into the drive way the rear brakes were red hot and I saw a flame or 2 shoot out as well. I put the fire out and sprayed down the rims. The tempeture was so high that the rim went from a nice shiney silver to a slightly dull brownish silver. Since it was only the rear brakes I am guessing that the emergency/parking brake got stuck. She told me that you pulled the handle to release the parking brake when it was moving sluggish and it did nothing. I engaged the parking break and released it a few times and now I do see any problems. The car will eaily roll while in neutral. Needless to say, I have to replace the rotors, and pads. What may cause this scenerio where the rear brake get so hot that they start to burn up? I just don't want to put new rotors and pads on the car and then it do the same thing in a day or so. Thanks in advanced.

Here are some things that I have found so far...
1: Both rear rotors show signs of very high temps... blushish to black coloration.

2: Both rear brakes have pad left on them, just a tad under a 1/4 inch left . Can't say how much was on there to begin with. Have had no brake jobs recently.

3: There is a lot of rust build up on the calipers.

4: The remaining brake padding broke apart very easily in my hand. Most likely caused by the high temps.

5: Front brakes are perfectly fine, only the rear brakes were affected.

6: Can't see damage done to parking brake padding behind the rotors because there are stuck on pretty good. Letting some WD40 and PB soak into to relase the rotors.

Thanks,
Idigital