So I took my daughters HHR to the shop to get the rear brake shoes replaced and that turned into a $3k nightmare.

Mechanic said I need all new rear brake drums and hardware and lines so I agreed because it's my daughters car and I wanted her to be safe.

After they replaced ALL of the rear brake parts they come back and tell me the master cylinder is shot. I agreed to get it replaced as well.

They call me and tell me it's ready so I take my kid and we go pick it up. We didn't even get back home before the front brakes locked up.

Call the shop, they pay for a tow and we get it back to the shop. Next day they said it was a faulty master cylinder, they replace it under warranty and then tell us it's ready.

We pick it up and everything seems OK. Next day my daughter was on the way to her college class and same thing. Front brakes lock up.

We let it sit at the campus overnight and next morning we get it and brakes are OK, but by the time we get to the shop about a mile away, brakes are locked up again.

Now they say it's probably bad calipers in the front so we replace the calipers, brake pads, hoses, and get the rotors turned just in case they got heat warped.

They call and say it's ready. We got pick it up. It made it two days this time before brakes lock up again.

Get it back to the shop and now they say the only other thing it could be is the proportioning valve. As we all know, that is impossible to find as a new part anywhere. I found one on ebay and got it ordered. Got it in, took it to the shop and they got it changed out. They swore they test drove it and everything was good.

We go and pick it up and my daughter didn't make it a mile before the brakes locked up again.

The shop says they have no idea what it could be as they had basically replaced the entire brake system.

Any ideas from the HHR enthusiasts here?

 

to the forums!!

Your profile lists the car as 2006, so there's no ABS.

When you say that the front brakes lock up, please explain this better. Do they lock when the brakes are applied? With any amount of force? Do they stay locked up after the pedal is released?

 

When you first start off it is fine, but the more you use the brakes the harder the pedal gets and the more the front brakes start locking up until eventually the front brakes won't release at all.

It's seems something is not allowing the brake fluid to flow back to the master cylinder.

If you let it sit overnight it releases on it's own but then when you start driving and using the brakes it does the same thing.

 

My first thought is the master cylinder.

I believe the proportioning valve is not split front/back. I think it is split right rear + left front/ left rear + right front.

 

Did they replace the brake flex hoses? Sometimes when the get older they can swell internally this causes that brake lock up, in the front brakes

RJ, have another look, 2006 models could have JL4 RPO code which is ABS

 

I was told all of the brake hoses attached to the rear and front brakes were replaced.

The original Master Cylinder was replaced and then replaced again with another new one just 3 days after that as they thought it was a faulty Master Cylinder at first.

The only thing on the brake system that hasn't been replaced, as far as I can tell, are the hardlines running from the proportioning valve to the front/rear, and the hardlines from the master cylinder to the proportioning valve.

Other than that, the only thing left is the actual brake pedal and plunger.

I just went to try to get her car back to the house and didn't make it 1.5 miles. I was soft braking the whole way. It was like every time I touched the brake pedal the pads would grip tighter and tighter on the rotor until eventually, I could barely move. I had to park it in a parking garage until I can get it later and try to get it home.

****Just an FYI**** Prior to them replacing the rear brakes and Master Cylinder, we never had this issue.

 

Are you sure it is the fronts locking up? Sounds more like incompetent install of rear self adjusters to me, not unusual because most mechanics have never seen drums.

 

OK, then, it could be an ABS problem after all!

Here is an interesting conversation I found about brakes locking up. https://www.2carpros.com/questions/brakes-sticking

 

LOL, I went to that thread (pretty informative) and saw this clickbait ad-

 

I have an old E150 that had front brake hoses that were too short and making a hard turn kinked the fitting on the end of the LF hose just right so the brake would apply and release partially, but only fully release VERY slowly. Took awhile to figure that one out.