Brakes caught fire 1999 C280
 

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

Answer:
 

Best guess, failed master cylinder, seized calipers or failed hoses..

You need new rotors, pads, and rebuilt calipers.

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wow, I agree with whunter on that. No idea what'd cause the problems though.

Definetly power bleed the brakes afterwords, get all that cooked fluid out.
I'd suspect the rear wheel bearing grease too if it got that hot. Can you re-pack thoose or are they replace only?

Were they both like that, or just one side? It'd be really uncommon for both sides to seize at the same time........... I suspect the parking brake was unintentionally applied and left on for some time.

Good luck
~Nate

It would seem odd that both either hoses or calipers wopuld go at the same time though. I'd be looking more toward something that they share, be it the e-brake, rear hard line feed, or even master cylinder. I have only had something similar happen once- I had a front caliper seize on me, it caused a horrible vibration and when I stopped and got out to check (at night) I could see the disc was glowing bright red. This was on my 82 300CD with 3 year old calipers on it :rolleyes:

on a few occasions i have seen the master cylinder way over filled will cause the rear brakes to drag, also as the above poster mentioned about the parking brake being on unintentionally, have seen a few customers with that issue, usually happens when someone who is unfamilliar with the car, borrows it.

I'd bet on the E brake being stuck on.

As Roy said above get a set of rebuilt calipers, brake houses and flush out the fluid.

I'd repack the wheel bearings as well, I bet the grease is cooked.

Did you see where the flames were coming from?

I third the thought that the e brake was on.

Tom W

Wheels and tires too!
 

If the brakes got hot enought to discolor the wheels, then the aluminum wheels and the tires are probably toast, excuse the pun. The heat may have changed the alloy wheel characteristics and weakened the rims, and quite possibly damaged the tire beads as well, according to the following articles:


http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb4761/is_200506/ai_n17348964

http://www.alcoa.com/alcoawheels/south_america/en/info_pages/technical_desg.asp

do a search on google for the terms: aluminum, wheel, heat , failure, tires, etc.

Thanks guys for the replies. I will take off the rotors on the day after Christmas and check the e-brake. If they look ok, then I know that it wasn't the e-brake. Wife has had this car for about 5 years so I think she knows the check the e-brake.... Or atleast I hope so. :D She said that she pulled the e-brake release several times and it didn't do anything, so it may be a caliper problem. The rims aren't in bad shape. It was a bunch or dirt and the fire extinghuser powder that gave a yellowish brown color. I rubbed it off and it pretty much silver still. How much do re-built calipers for the rear cost for a 99 C280? I hope to find more answer once I remove the rotors. Speaking of rotors. These are the hardest rotors that I have ever had to remove. hehehe. I will have to break out the rubber mallet on these. I didn't see the flames myself. My wife did, and my neighbor did. Both are women, so they will simply say the tire was on fire. It was kind of funny. Wife pulled up, neighbor yelled at her that her car was on fire. Wife jumps out and panics. There spray the fire out and are all emotional. I then call her cell to find out where she is and she says that she is home and that the car was on fire. I run out thinking the worse and all I was able to see was the steam coming off the rotor while they were spraying it down. I was in the bedroom when all of this was happening and I heard the comotion but I thought it was just the neighborhood kids being loud. Thanks again guys.

Answer:
 

Vehicle: 1999 Mercedes Benz C 280 Sedan

Brake Caliper, Front Left
MB# 0014202983

Brake Caliper, Right Front
MB# 0014203083

Brake Caliper, Rear Left
MB# 1294200283

Brake Caliper, RIGHT REAR
MB# 1294200383


I strongly recommend you Call with your VIN# to verify part# before ordering.

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my advice...do not buy reman calipers. pay the money for brand new. tried remans for my w116...lasted about a year before they started to leak. went brand new and all is good.

at work we have stopped using ANY reman brake/ clutch hydraulic component. the brake system is nowhere to be trying to save a few bucks.

I've seen this type of failure several times, on a variety of MB's. Don't ask me how it happens, but the master cylinder can fail in such a way as to cause exactly the problem you've experienced. In each of the cases I've seen, it was the rear brakes which were affected, and the problem began after several miles of driving. A few years back I learned this the hard way. Replace the master cylinder, brake hoses, calipers, rotors, and parking brake shoes/hardware. While you've got eveything apart, make sure the the cables aren't binding. The heat generated can cause damage elsewhere, so look over everything carefully!

How common is this? I've seen plenty of truck fires caused by seized brakes, but don't recall ever seeing it on a car.

Once you get the discs off and get a look at the parking brake shoes then hopefully it will be clear whether it was the parking brake on or the main pads that heated up. I would think the offending pads/shoes would be badly burned compared to the innocent ones. For my blind guess I am going to side with your wife and say that it was not the E-brake but was the mystery failure described by some others such as master cylinder or hose.

OK, I got the rotors off. And from what I can gather, I believe this was a main brake system failure. The calipers are in very bad shape and show signs of high temps. The E-brakes don't look that bad. I can actually still see rust on parts of the e-brake pads, which would have easily be worn off if they were engaged against the rotor. Here are some pics of the calipers and e-brakes.

http://www.idigitaltech.com/1.jpg

http://www.idigitaltech.com/2.jpg

http://www.idigitaltech.com/3.jpg

I am replacing pretty much everything, pads, rotors, MC, and calipers.