Brakes stuck after sitting?

golfski · Dec 28, 2014

I had an interesting experience when trying to drive my tesla for the first time after having it sit in my garage for 8 days when out on vacation. I put the car into Drive and with creep on, it did not go anywhere. I thought creep was off, but it was engaged. I gave the accelerator a little nudge and then heard a loud pop, at which point the car started rolling forward and seemed to be engaged correctly.

It almost seemed as though the brake pads were stuck to the rotors after sitting for over a week (was raining on the last day I drove it). Has anyone else experienced this before? There also seemed to be a bit of creaking going on in the first drive out after letting it sit.

stopcrazypp · Dec 28, 2014

Appears to be a common case of surface rust build-up on the rotor after having wet brakes sitting for a while. As you wear away the rust with some brake applications, the creaking and stickiness should go away.

SeminoleFSU · Dec 28, 2014

golfski said:
I had an interesting experience when trying to drive my tesla for the first time after having it sit in my garage for 8 days when out on vacation. I put the car into Drive and with creep on, it did not go anywhere. I thought creep was off, but it was engaged. I gave the accelerator a little nudge and then heard a loud pop, at which point the car started rolling forward and seemed to be engaged correctly.

It almost seemed as though the brake pads were stuck to the rotors after sitting for over a week (was raining on the last day I drove it). Has anyone else experienced this before? There also seemed to be a bit of creaking going on in the first drive out after letting it sit.

Happens to me a lot and scares the crap out of me every time

necho · Dec 28, 2014

golfski said:
I had an interesting experience when trying to drive my tesla for the first time after having it sit in my garage for 8 days when out on vacation. I put the car into Drive and with creep on, it did not go anywhere. I thought creep was off, but it was engaged. I gave the accelerator a little nudge and then heard a loud pop, at which point the car started rolling forward and seemed to be engaged correctly.

It almost seemed as though the brake pads were stuck to the rotors after sitting for over a week (was raining on the last day I drove it). Has anyone else experienced this before? There also seemed to be a bit of creaking going on in the first drive out after letting it sit.

Only noticed that after driving in wet conditions ... thought that the disk not getting warm enough to dry while driving since I drive mostly w/o using them ..

Bighorn · Dec 28, 2014

Very common in winter

Chipper · Dec 29, 2014

Happens every time I put her away after a hand wash. I have grown accustomed to it now but the first few times I thought for sure I had broken something.

shelbri · Dec 29, 2014

Experience it often after hand washing and not driving until the next day. Not exclusive to Tesla either. Happens with all my cars.

PokerBroker · Dec 29, 2014

Very common, happens with any car

Jaff · Dec 30, 2014

Yep, happens every time with the Roadster (when put away wet)...no biggie

PokerBroker said:
Very common, happens with any car

cwerdna · Dec 30, 2014

shelbri said:
Not exclusive to Tesla either. Happens with all my cars.

Yep. I've had it happen on my Prius, as I mentioned at Brakes freeze up when parked. Previous cars didn't do this. - Page 2.

mknox · Dec 31, 2014

PokerBroker said:
Very common, happens with any car

Well, not in my 30+ years of driving experience. I have it big time in the Model S. Sometimes I have to apply so much power that I'm concerned about how fast I'll shoot out of the garage when the brakes do finally break free.

wycolo · Jan 1, 2015

Is it possible to park in NEUTRAL so the eBrake remains loose? Chances are your garage is level so no eBrake is really needed. You could screw some 1x wood pieces to the floor in the ideal parking spot to keep car from rolling, say if someone leaned on it. The wood would make parking easier too.

If it can't be done, then you could try to put it in TOW MODE each time.
--

Merrill · Jan 1, 2015

Happened to me after washing and letting sit overnight, first time it happened it freaked me out.

mknox · Jan 1, 2015

wycolo said:
Is it possible to park in NEUTRAL so the eBrake remains loose?
--

It's not the e-Brake, it's the regular service brakes. Somewhere on TMC a user posted a video of his Model S actually dragging the front wheels through his garage as he backed up.

SeminoleFSU · Jan 1, 2015

mknox said:
Well, not in my 30+ years of driving experience. I have it big time in the Model S. Sometimes I have to apply so much power that I'm concerned about how fast I'll shoot out of the garage when the brakes do finally break free.

+1 I've never experienced this on any other cars I've owned in my lifetime. I will say that hearing so many other people say that it is normal and occurs on other cars makes me feel a lot better though. I too sometimes have to give it more pedal than creep provides and get a little nervous about what's going to happen right before they pop loose (slingshot!!). Mine often don't pop loose at the same time either so it's almost like crunching through frozen snow or something.

Sparrow · Jan 1, 2015

Yes, seems worse on the Roadster than the S, but hasn't caused any other problems other than the noise and jolt when the brakes break free in my 6 year old Roadster so I am not concerned.

jamieb · Jan 1, 2015

Happens with my P85 and my wife's Prius all the time but only rarely with my prior ICE cars with Bembro brakes (usually after washing a cold car and then letting it sit for a day).. I think that with regen and hardly touching the brakes during routine driving, when you come in from the rain in a MS the discs aren't warm enough to evaporate the water, whereas on most ICE cars just routine driving probably heats up the discs enough to evaporate any remaining water.

Those of you with a FLIR scanner could compare the temperature of the discs on your MS after routine driving to the discs of an ICE car after a similar route. Probably quite different.

mknox · Jan 1, 2015

jamieb said:
Those of you with a FLIR scanner could compare the temperature of the discs on your MS after routine driving to the discs of an ICE car after a similar route. Probably quite different.

While less frequent, I've also experienced it in the warmth of summer. I think it is more of a "rust" issue than a "freezing" one.

Canuck · Jan 1, 2015

mknox said:
Well, not in my 30+ years of driving experience. I have it big time in the Model S. Sometimes I have to apply so much power that I'm concerned about how fast I'll shoot out of the garage when the brakes do finally break free.

Same here. My wife often sees me off to work and she's jumped from the sound of it. If I hadn't read about it here before getting my car, I'd think something was wrong with the car.

jerry33 · Jan 1, 2015

SeminoleFSU said:
+1 I've never experienced this on any other cars I've owned in my lifetime. I will say that hearing so many other people say that it is normal and occurs on other cars makes me feel a lot better though. I too sometimes have to give it more pedal than creep provides and get a little nervous about what's going to happen right before they pop loose (slingshot!!). Mine often don't pop loose at the same time either so it's almost like crunching through frozen snow or something.

It's common on cars that don't use the brakes much or that have highly reactive rotors. It's almost not possible on cars with inboard brakes (DS-21). With the Land-Rover you were lucky to have brakes at all--let alone have them stick.

Brakes stuck after sitting?

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