BRAKES FAILED!!

Assuming nothing blocked the pedal sounds like your power assist failed. I'd check the wiring to it. Very unlikely the actual brakes completely failed.

 

My 2003 4runner had same issue. I was in parking lot luckily, I found out that brake fluid was spewing out of rusted brake line... It was burst wide open, parking brake never worked so i was lucky to just jump out of a car in parking lot and stop it, until my neighbor brought wheel chocks

 

That is not the same issue at all. OP claims brakes failed then worked as designed after the accident. That would not happen with a broken hydraulic line.

 

take a moment to practice pulling your parking brake with the button pushed in so you can vary the amount of brake needed. You will be surprised how effective these are at locking up the back tires. It surprised me the first time. This lever should be the reached for when you realize you have no main brakes. Throwing it in Neutral also helps keep any added engine power from going to the wheels.

 

It's an automatic, to answer one question and no the airbags didn't deploy. Also, nothing like a water bottle under the pedal.
I do have ditch lights, light bar and grill lights added to the fuse box with add a fuse which is where the brake booster fuse is and I'm going to investigate that if I'm able to open the hood. (pretty crunched)
Insurance wants me to take it to one of their recommended shops which actually has very good ratings but I'm not sure if I should get damage fixed first and the take it to the dealership for investigation or just straight to Tacoma. Thanks for the replies!

 

Yup...tried that going down a ramp in a parking garage once when I first got my truck just to feel it out if I ever needed it. They were locked in about an inch and a half of travel on the lever.

It will do the job but go easy and try it a few times. Also continue to steer, even thought the rear may lock and slide, you obviously don't have locked front wheels. Keep steering and if it decides to drift, turn in into the skid like you would any other time you skid to keep it somewhat straight. Hard to remember all that in the heat of the moment but it is there if you ever need it.

 

This is too freaky. I actually had a dream last night that I lost my brakes on my Taco. Usually when I have a vivid dream it's induced by an actual event. Like mentioned here: if I had worked on my brakes then maybe the dream. In this case nothing, just out of nowhere.

 

Answered my own question, I'm going to take it to Toyota in the morning and have them look at the EDR (event data recorder)
and find out what the data says.

 

I thought the point of a parking brake was to double as an emergency brake if there is a failure. Is that not the case anymore?

 

I don’t think that was ever truly its intention. The rear wheels are the worst place to try to stop from. So much can go wrong if you lock them up which is very easy to do with an hand brake and you get very little stopping from the rears at their max braking capacity before the lockup happens.

I had an aftermarket braided brake hose bust on my Jeep years ago and I was going 30 mph on an empty neighborhood experience at night. It was a frightening experience trying to use the pedal parking brake to stop. Of course, it was the only thing that really slowed me down, so I was glad to have it, but it does a very poor job of actually stopping in an emergency. I did learn that I’ll never use aftermarket brake hoses again.

 

Hopefully it stored some data.
I'm not exactly sure how the EDR works.
But I think on some vehicles it has to meet certain criteria before it stores the data?
@tonered You know ?

 

If the airbags didn't deploy there won't be any information stored, or at least it's very very unlikely.

 

Oddly enough I just ran into something like this the other day, my thread kind of de-railed but it seems like we had a very similar problem.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/2020-trd-or-booster-issues.834488/#post-29896993

 

I do not know. @daks, I believe, noted it a while back. I tried and the process timed out for me. I believe the thinking at the time was that I have all the info?

 

My bad - I misread the OP’s original post about “reaching for the e-brake”. The first thing that popped into my head was the (electronic) parking brake on my Outback. Can’t be used in an emergency, only for parking. Looks like all the 3rd Gens have the old-fashioned manual lever-type emergency brake.

However, this might be gone on the 2024 Taco.

Waiting to see what the OP is able to find out from the event data recorder.

 

Not completely true. Info is stored and rotated, like black boxes on planes however, it does have a "time limit" via on and off key cycles. Arming episodes occur regularly, the unit tracks the braking, impact, etc... if the episode stays the same or gets worse, the bags may deploy. If the episode stays the same then dissipates, the bags were armed but, didnt deploy due to the lack of parameters.

To the OP, is there a chance, you jumped on the brakes so hard, you were "applying enough pressure to lock the brakes up", and the Anti-Lock Brake system activated? In a panic type stop, it is easy to do this, and not understand why the vehicle wont stop. Best practice in this type of situation is, to hold the pedal down as firm as possible and let the ABS system try to mitigate the braking distance. If you release the brake and press hard again, (over and over) the system reactivates and it can mimic the feeling, you have no brakes, with a seriously solid pedal feel, increasing braking distance, and impact probability.

Sorry for your accident, hopefully this is fixed and rectified to your satisfaction. I wish you luck. Ski

 

I would never say 100% it doesn't/wouldn't record, but in my experience I've never seen recorded data without an airbag deployment. I've seen vehicles take some pretty hard hits, no deployment, and thought for sure I would see some data....nope! I'm sure in the not too distant future EVERYTHING you do in your vehicle will be recorded and stored somewhere!

 

mark of the beast coming near you

 

Glad you are okay. Brakes never not work then do work. It's kinda impossible.

 

I wonder if your foot was really on the brake pedal. Either brakes work or they don't...and when they don't usually the pedal goes to the floor. Even if you loose power brake boost, brakes still work but the pedal will be stiff.