The other day I was driving and I mustve been day dreaming or something but I suddenly became aware of a stopped car infront of me, so I slammed on my brakes but I found that my car did not stop.. So I had to swerve and jump up on a sidewalk..

After this I was testing on an empty highway, not slamming my brakes but still braking pretty hard, I had no trouble stopping even at hwy speeds.. Had my brakes checked at the dealer just to be safe, and they said it was fine and still plenty of life on the pads..

The only thing I could think of is that when I slam the brakes, the wheels come to a complete stop, not having time to slow down first, and the momentum keeps the car from stopping right away. Does that make sense? Or is something wrong with the car?

 

Umm, no this doesn't make sense, unless you are referring to locking up the brakes, which shouldn't happen due to ABS

If this was in the rain or snow, its possible that you got some slush up into the wheel and it took a second for the brakes to heat up.

If you had SBC, I'd say there is something wrong with that, but given that you don't, its very odd that your brakes didn't work. Brakes are pretty simple.

 

It wasn't raining or snowing and the roads were clean (if they were moist or not I don't remember) but it was pretty cold out.. Could that have been a factor?

 

Do the 2009s have BAS (brake assist system) like the 2010s? It maximizes braking pressure during panic stops. This should have kicked in your specific situation. If you let off, it will deactivate too. This is different from ABS also. W/o trying to start an argument, maybe you didn't slam them like you thought. Just go out and SLAM them on and see what happens w/o any other distractions.

 

shouldn't have been, no.

go into a very very empty area, and give it a couple of hard stops and see what happens.

I suppose its possible you may have a kinked brake line.

 

Any differences in pedal feel- harder/softer/spongy, etc? Any fluid puddles in your garage under the car? Air in the brake system will cause a very spongy pedal, long pedal travel, and reduced braking pressure- that'd be my first guess. Do you know if your dealer tried bleeding your brakes, or did they just run a quick test with DAS, see that there weren't any fault codes and send you on your way? Hope you didn't damage a wheel by jumping the curb....

I was almost going to ask you if you were sure you weren't driving a Prius...

 

Hehe, nice Prius comment there

 

Hahaha.. I guess the first thing I'll do is find an empty road and do a few brake checks before I go to the dealer. The time I was talking about in the OP was in the city so I wasn't going all that fast to begin with, so recreating should not be hard at all.

Referring to baabootoo's post, that may very well be possible too. My foot isn't what it used to be and maybe "slamming" with a recently (fully healed) broken foot isn't really slamming.

 

I will need to look into this as well. I have been suspecting longer pedal travel but it could just be me as I was away from the car for a long period of time.

 

Congratulations on spelling the word "Brakes" correctly. You might be the fist OP in this forum to accomplish such a feat.

 

Did some testing today, slamming on the brakes even at like 35mph, I can make the car keep moving a little bit even with the brake fully pressed.. It is repeatable. If it matters, I could feel the pedal shaking under my foot, almost as if it hasn't fully clamped onto the rotors. I was told this feeling could also be the ABS kicking in, but it was described to me as more of a vibrating feeling.

Still braking hard, but not slamming, I have no trouble stopping at any speeds. Seems that this is only happening when I slam on them. It was about 33F and my tires are PS2's all around. Any thoughts before I go back to the dealer?

 

im betting that the pedal shake as you describe IS the ABS. wont hurt to let the dealer look at it...

 

The pads need to be heated up to work well in the winter 2 or three good stops down from 80 to 100kph will put some heat in those brakes your basically driving a race car in the middle of North American winter you have to expect some noise and squealing until heated up along with fade until you get some good heat into the brake assembly