Unbelievable thing happened tonite! - The Unofficial BMW M5 Messageboard (m5board.com)

petesamprs · 14th April 2002, 08:01

Ok I'm a college student, and I'm driving back to school from home in NY (I go to school in Baltimore). Granted, I don't drive an m5 (so this is probably for the OT board), I actually drive a 1990 Toyota Tercel manual 4-speed.

As I'm about 1 mile from my apartment in baltimore (after having driven 200+ miles), driving around 30-40 mph, my RIGHT REAR WHEEL LOCKS UP!! That's right, while driving normally in 3rd gear, my wheel locks up completely, and I skid 100 ft, and come to stop, without ever touching the brakes. I have never seen or heard of anything like it before in my life. I was safe since the car skidded perfectly straight, but the car was stuck in the middle of the road, since I could not even roll it off to the side - the right rear wheel remained locked! It was as if just THAT wheel's brake kicked in and would not let go. I have no idea what actually happened, what caused it, or how much it'll cost.

I did pull it over to the side, but driving the car after it happened was like the same feeling like driving the car with the emergency brake on, but 10x as difficult to overcome the brake.

If any of you have had any experience with this, or have any idea what could have caused this, please shed some light.

Thanks

Note: the car has 170K miles, and had a tune up and brake work done on it yesterday, and drove perfectly fine for the 200+ miles before the incident this evening.

Caribbean-M5 · 14th April 2002, 08:20

Front wheel drive car and you did not touch the brakes.... Frozen bearing??

EBMCS03 · 14th April 2002, 08:43

Woo thats pretty crazy... never heard of that one before. the brakes just locks up? just one of the brakes? the right one? 1990 car. they dont have any electronics like the ABS taht would malfunction to lock up the brakes do they?

petesamprs · 14th April 2002, 16:01

UCSD - No ABS, No DSC-type system. Also, the Ebrake hadn't been touched.

Carribean - It's around 60 deg fahrenheit here, so nothing can be frozen. The tow truck guy did mention somethnig about a bearing manfunctioning, but I don't even know what a bearing is.

rvacha · 14th April 2002, 16:16

I would guess most likely explanation is the wheel bearing as others have guessed. I've trashed two of them over the years and one did lock up, but in both cases the bearing made a tremendous amount of grinding noise before they died. You have small, skinny wheels and I would guess the bearing could lock up without much fight.

If it is the bearing, it can be a PIA to remove from the spindle or hub - they have a way of literally welding themselves to the parts of the car you want to keep!

MAVERICK · 14th April 2002, 21:57

Sounds like a costly repair bill for you. Lucky it happened at low speed on a straight road.

ijam · 15th April 2002, 13:40

that's how I crashed my old Rover 220...

front right wheel was making very slight whining noise, but since I'd had bearing trouble before (another car) I was worried and booked the car in to be checked

of course, I stupidly drove it day before it was due to go in and as I was slowing for a roundabout (gentle braking, less than 30mph) the front right locked up. managed to get it to skid slightly left of straight with full left lock and brakes applied harder, but road curved left as it met the roundabout and I ended up wrapped around a pole. whole accident was over in 3 seconds... the damage done at less than 30mph makes me much a more careful driver these days

glad you're ok!

ciao

Ian

Jimmy Hill · 15th April 2002, 16:47

Crazy Story

Happy u r ok Mr Samprass. Oh Hang on - I didnt know the tennis wiz was a student in Bmore!! -

its crazy what cars can do - they reall do have a mind of their own. I had a 98 Gs400 that just DIED on the highway at about 80. Lost all power, electrcs ( powersteering and power breaks) scared the crap out of me but was going in a straight line and just coasted to a stop. No one ever figured out what happened - the Lex chaps had it for a week. maybee it was just bad Carma

They eventually made up some excuse about the airconditioning frying the computer!!!! Yeah Right

U never know when stuff like that is going to hit

But glad u made it out

Probably wouldnt ahve made a difference if u were in the beast - like i said - u never know when stuff like that can happen - even if the car is in "perfect" condition

See u out there

M5Mark

BMW_Jim · 15th April 2002, 16:49

Petesamprs

When Caribbean-M5 suggested that it might be a frozen bearing, he wasn't speaking of cold, he meant that it couldn't turn. I think that that is likely the problem from what you describe.