First Gen Spin out while braking on highway.

I recently bought a 95 Tacoma, Regular cab, 4x4, 5 Speed manual. Very nice for its age and I love the truck. Yesterday I was driving on the highway and saw the car infront of me slow down so I began to apply brakes as I did the truck proceeded to do a 180 while driving it the jersey barrier and dent the hell out of the front fender and bumper. My question is what could have cause this near instant spin out while braking? The truck doesn’t have ABS but I was aware of this and didn’t feel like I was applying the brakes particularly hard or suddenly, As far as I can remember I kept the wheel straight while braking and didn’t attempt to go around the slowing vehicle infront of me. I was doing 60-65 MPH nothing crazy either I didn’t even hear or feel the wheels lock up before I spun out it just felt like I applied brakes and spun out.

Can anyone think if any issues with the truck that might cause it to behave this way? I just bought the truck and honestly don’t want to drive it anymore at least not on the highway but as anyone can understand that unfortunately isn’t an option for me. Nor is just driving another vehicle as this is new daily after selling my last truck.

 

Sounds like a brake caliper or two is seized.

 

I'd be more inclined to check tire pressure (chalk test) and verify that the suspension has been recently maintained (shocks and springs) front and rear. The rotational momentum had to be initiated somehow, and if you kept the wheel straight, then the next likely source would be an imbalance in the COG, and what I'm suggesting is that could have been due to worn suspension.

Years ago, I had relocated my rear shocks to a / \ orientation with some custom fab. It's a better orientation for wheeling and articulation, but once the shocks had worn out, it was a handful on the freeway. I subsequently put some 5100's back into the stock locations as I was mostly driving on the freeway at that point.

I think if sticky calipers were to blame, then you'd notice other symptoms.

You may also want to inspect the upper and lower control arm bushings and upper and lower ball joints, and steering rack bushings and tie rods to ensure that while you may have held the wheel straight, that something didn't shift enough to cause that COG imbalance.

 

Thanks guys, I am going to check the suspension and ball joints etc here in about twenty minutes. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the suspension isn’t worn out as the guy I bought it from said he bought it from his friend to get him out of a financial bind. Of course I test drove it around the neighborhood but it has mud tires on it with horrible road noise which might have covered up some of the issues. I checked this morning and the drivers front tire feels likes it’s cupped pretty bad making me think it might have bad control arms and balljoints there which would make sense why it spun out to the right depending of course on how much play they have. I will post an update after I check everything out.

I will be honest if the suspension is worn out I am going to be more than a little bummed since the truck is in very nice condition for its age and has no rust in the frame either and the interior is pretty mint as well.

 

For that to happen I would really be suspecting something wrong with the brakes/calipers, maybe only one grabbed and locked up forcing the truck to spin in that direction. Weird though, haven't heard of this happening before

 

Have you ruled out oil or fuel on the road??

Your talking nice dry road concrete ?

I have seen Black Top cook the oil out in very Hot weather .

I would suspect this more then Brake problems.

I am curious how this plays out.

 

Concrete road, Dry, 95 Degrees out in Texas.

 

Maybe an issue with the brake proportioning valve in the rear? Perhaps it was modded when the truck was lifted, and not reversed for std suspension? Not sure if the 1995 had that...

 

I would go to an empty parking lot and hit the brakes hard at different speeds and see if it wants to pull hard left or right while doing so. May tell you if you need to look at the brakes or something else.

 

Ok, I checked both ball joints and they seemed fine, I checked my tire pressure and found it to be fine as well. Nothing in the suspension seems off. I went out and got up to about thirty MPH and slammed on the brakes to see if I could get them to lock up and maybe get the back end to kick out a bit but no luck. Even with locking up the tires and that speed I just got a little skidding and the drivers side rear drum felt like it was locking up before the passenger side, but didn’t feel like it was locking any amount sooner to make a difference (will still most likely adjust the drums). Because it got dark I did not have a chance to check the inside of the drums for glazing or worn pads.

There is a large open parking lot near my work tomorrow I am going to go and try to get up to 50 or 60 MPH and slam on the brakes to see if I could get it to happen again. Before hand however I will check the drums for any unusual wear or anything out of the ordinary.

I know this sounds a bit defeatist, but this thing has kind of left me on shaky ground with this truck, even if it was user error (which I am not ruling out, no one is perfect) I am still really wondering if I am capable of handling a truck this light without anti-lock brakes on it. I have not completely sold my previous truck (2019 Tacoma TRD Off-Road), but I basically just have it sitting in the garage at the moment until I take it up to sell it. Right now I am just thinking about fixing the damage on the 95 and selling it again and sticking with my “old” truck. I do a lot of driving long distance and worry if something like this happened hundreds of miles from home.

 

I know I have mentioned this before in other threads but how old are the tires?
Me, from experience, I tend to keep tires on my truck for a long time. Even if they look good and don't seem to have any problems going down the road they do get hard over time and if they are pumped to max pressure they will not have as much grip as when they were new and when you get a little liquid on them it is like driving on ice.
I have noticed after I had put my new tires on I can hear the tires gripping the road and the ride is smooth but when they are old the tire noise changes and you can kind of hear a resonating sound. I remember the same thing with my first set of new tires I put on the truck after I got rid of the oe tires, I thought there was something wrong with the tires until I test drove a brand new Tacoma and heard the same smooth gripping sound.
This also happened to my brothers Acura, the dealer sold him a used car with crap tires and I could hear a resonating sound and the car felt squirrely on the road and ride was harsh and made a lot of noise like a bearing was going out but after we changed the tires the noise went away.

 

What do your tires look like? I spun out on Christmas on a wet road turning left at a stoplight one time.

 

The Tires look alright to me, they have decent tread depth but I am unsure of the age. I plan on replacing them with BFG KO2’s which is what i’ve used on every other truck i’ve owned. They are Kendra Klevers which I understand to be a “value” off road tire.

 

*Kenda, yep they are. Coincidentally I spun out on BFG KO1s and run Kenda now haha.

Do ensure they're not over-inflated as the guy above me said.

 

I checked them earlier they are all running at 35 PSI. The tires might very well be old, from what I gather from the previous owner it seemed like him and his friend who owned it before mainly used the truck as a weekend camping/hunting/fishing trip vehicle and not as a daily. So lord only knows when the tires were put on there. I should be getting off work earlier tomorrow then today and be able to do a more thorough inspection of the tires and such.

I have dealt with old tires before on a early 90’s ranger we used as a farm truck. It had probably the original tires on it and if it was even remotely wet they would loose grip on the pavement. Luckily we only used the truck to get from one side of the farm to the other so wasn’t a huge issue.

 

Ya they should have a date code somewhere. Older than 10 years, I'd replace. Would be weird though if that caused the accident.

 

Tacomas, especially older ones, have a tendency for the rear shoes to "over adjust". You can check this by pulling the parking brake handle and counting the clicks. If I remember correctly it should be around 18 clicks. With a combination of a very light weight on the rear tires and a sudden application of brakes the/a rear tire can lock up.

 

Take pics of the tires and other parts.

Good tires make a load of difference. If you want on road traction, cant beat michelin LTS MS2 https://www.michelin.ca/en/auto/tires/michelin-ltx-m-s2

Check all your brakes, calipers, etc. You can slam your brakes with non abs and not spin out. Likely tires or something on the road like gravel or oil.

 

That is a good idea, I will count the clicks tomorrow morning and post an update.

New tires definitely can, and you are right you can slam on the brakes without ABS and not spin out that’s why I was so surprised it happened since it didn’t even seem like I locked the wheels, just applied brakes then all the sudden i’m up against the jersey barrier backwards on the highway. As I said though I do not factor out myself as the reason for the accident, it very well could be operator error and I could be misremembering the sequence of events.

 

It could be a faulty caliper in that if one doesn't work properly one tire will continue to spin while the other is getting the brakes. I had something similar happen to me, and when I removed the pads to inspect a caliper, the entire piston fell out. Be careful.