Dunno if anyone else has ever had this, but my brakes have failed on me twice in the last couple of weeks. No harm done, but that is by luck rather than judgement. When I say twice, what an idiot I am not to call the dealer straight away. 1st time, a couple of weeks ago, I was leaving home, which involved two junction stops and, when I went to stop at the T-Junction (third junction of the journey), the car just wouldn't stop. Brake pedal felt all hard and wouldn't push in. Luckily, I was going very slowly and nothing was coming from the right, so I just (not throught choice) carried on and turned left onto the main road.

I then put my foot on the brake pedal - and I stopped normally. Ater much puzzling, I reckoned I had not been pressing the right thing (why did I think that?) .... and gingerly carried on with all working fine.

Until this morning, same thing again - exact same junction. Funny how the brake pedal worked for the previous two junction stops. This time I had the presence of mind to put the hand brake on. It stopped - but not as quickly as you might think (even though I was crawling along when it happened). This time, I would have hit a nice gentleman in his flatbed truck (had I not stopped like the first one). Or rather, he would have hit me.

I now have more grey hair and know a good cure for constipation.

Any ideas.

Incidentally, car now on way to dealers for examination. I've been mad for flipping years, absolutely years, over the edge for yonks.

I wouldnt take the car back unless they DO find a problem. Last thing you want is them to fail when you REALLY need them to work. WINNER - 2008 Best All New Photograph
WINNER - 2009 Best All New Photograph

Also if you took it back with a known "latent" defect in the brakes your insurers wouldn't be terribly happy if you had an accident 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

I've seen a similar problem before on a td5 disco , i think.


I've been trying to find the old forum thread but i think the details were on a newsgroup...remember them??

the disco would do the same thing ,it was traced EVENTUALLY to a faulty vacuum non return valve.
£5 worth of plastic valve but creating brown trouser moments of epic proportion.

The dealer ed about for months with ABS ecus and diagnostics but it came down to old school fault finding.

the plastic valve had a mind of it's own. they had it on an MOT brake test roller and would fail 3 times out of 10 applications.Still took ages to find as the LR mechanics refused to accept it might be faulty."they never go wrong"

I hope yours is sorted soon. Maybe you should go on a nice long drive with the service manager when it's done.

Which dealer has it gone into?

Mart Jaguar XF 3.0D Portfolio
RRS TDV6 HSE 2006 , Zermatt , Gone

It's going back to Guy Salmom in Portsmouth. Land Rover Assist are picking it up shortly - and arranging an Enterprise rental car - to arrive this evening so they say. Don't know what it'll be - probably a Focus or Mondeoo I guess?

My main concern is that I can't drive the car with any confidence while I believe it is in a dangerous state or without a cast-iron guarantee that the problem has been resolved.

Does anyone know anything about legal rights on this one. If I get the car and the brakes fail again - next time causing an accident - can I hold the dealer responsible for selling me a dangerous product.

I mean honestly, if I hadn't used the handbrake today, I would have been t-boned by a flatbed truck going about 50 mph. I'm guessing that you don't always survive such meetings to tell the tale.

Should I give the dealer notice in writing that they must give me back a safe car or face the consequences if it happens again?

I didn't think brakes could fail like that ... . I thought there would be some sort of failsafe nowadays. I've been mad for flipping years, absolutely years, over the edge for yonks.

mercuryl wrote:

arranging an Enterprise rental car - to arrive this evening so they say. Don't know what it'll be - probably a Focus or Mondeoo I guess?

We got a FFRR TDv8 from Enterprise today, courtesy of LRA. The secret is that when they bring you some wretched Vauxhall thingy you must stamp your feet, beat your fists on the ground and threaten to scream and scream and scream until you are sick. They will then bring you a "proper" car  RRS TDv8 HSE Rimini
Disco 4 TDv6 HSE Ipanema
Defender 90, 200tdi CSW

My experience of LRA was like for like or better policy - had FFRR both (or more ??) times

Hope that this is not a 'trend', mine went in for the same problem two days ago, damn scary when it happens but only happens in the morning. Dealer waiting for 'none return valve' which is in the 'break pipe'. Also mentioned to dealer about 'knocking' from front end, apparently they found something loose underneath that wasn't tightened by Land Rover on assembly of vehicle.

Rob T - are those two bits in quotes taken from the dealer's report or from someone's post on here? I just hope that you do have a non-return valve instead of a "none return valve" and that your brakes don't have a break somewhere in the system! 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Tim, hope you had a good laugh at my expense! let's not forget we are trying to help each other out here and not correct grammar, this is not an English exercise after all.

To all who would care to know, the non return valve is out of stock, so if your brakes do fail be prepared to wait

Here here. Yes Tim, I don't see the point in making fun of someone ... especially when your jokes are not funny. Just makes you look childish. I've been mad for flipping years, absolutely years, over the edge for yonks.

hi guys we have had a couple of d3s do this, its when the vaccuum pump on the back of the engine has aspirations of been an oil pump, the seals go bad and engine oil leaks into the pump and is then cleverly sent to the brake servo via the pipe that runs into the brake servo box (it has a ful pipe style connector before it dissapears into the top of the box) check the servo, i bet its full of engine oil. hope this helps, Richh they all do that!