Complete brake failure !!

[Clive]

my22 taycan turbo - 66k miles

My wife was driving back from school yesterday with our 2 children and experienced complete brake failure - pedal to the floor / zero ability to stop !

lucky no accident (miraculously!)

Car recovered to Sutton OPC where i was initially told would be end of June before they could even look at the issue ! They really don’t seem to be taking this very seriously at all

Escalated to Porsche GB today as i’m seriously concerned this could kill someone

anyone experienced this or heard of anyone having similar issues ? I find it hard to believe it’s even possible for a complete failure like this to occur


car opc serviced and owned from new


do you think i should make VOSO aware of this ? if it’s anything fundamental re design of components that could happen again to another owner then surely all Taycans should be taken off road until a solution is found

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[Hirschaj]

My wife was driving back from school yesterday with our 2 children and experienced complete brake failure - pedal to the floor / zero ability to stop !

That’s terrifying. How did she end up stopping the car?

 

[Murph7355]

my22 taycan turbo - 66k miles

My wife was driving back from school yesterday with our 2 children and experienced complete brake failure - pedal to the floor / zero ability to stop !

lucky no accident (miraculously!)

Car recovered to Sutton OPC where i was initially told would be end of June before they could even look at the issue ! They really don’t seem to be taking this very seriously at all

Escalated to Porsche GB today as i’m seriously concerned this could kill someone

anyone experienced this or heard of anyone having similar issues ? I find it hard to believe it’s even possible for a complete failure like this to occur


car opc serviced and owned from new


do you think i should make VOSO aware of this ? if it’s anything fundamental re design of components that could happen again to another owner then surely all Taycans should be taken off road until a solution is found

I don't see a knee jerk being helpful before they've looked at it.

Did you get it recovered using Porsche Assistance? I believe that gets you up the queue

What actually happened with the car? Zero brakes at speed? Slow speed? Just once? Repeated? They're going to need as many details as you can provide.

 

[gtm]

my22 taycan turbo - 66k miles

My wife was driving back from school yesterday with our 2 children and experienced complete brake failure - pedal to the floor / zero ability to stop !

lucky no accident (miraculously!)

Car recovered to Sutton OPC where i was initially told would be end of June before they could even look at the issue ! They really don’t seem to be taking this very seriously at all

Escalated to Porsche GB today as i’m seriously concerned this could kill someone

anyone experienced this or heard of anyone having similar issues ? I find it hard to believe it’s even possible for a complete failure like this to occur


car opc serviced and owned from new


do you think i should make VOSO aware of this ? if it’s anything fundamental re design of components that could happen again to another owner then surely all Taycans should be taken off road until a solution is found

More details please. No brakes at all from a higher speed would require that both regenerative braking and hydraulic braking failed to work. I'll guess you wife slowed normally until about 3 to 5 mph where regen stops and the mechanical brakes are supposed to have been blended in to bring the car to a stop. Not unknown for the transition to result in a "coasting" feeling that requires additional pedal travel to bring the car to a stop. It's not right and subject to multiple service bulletins. Possible your wife experienced an extreme case of this condition?

 

[Clive]

I don't see a knee jerk being helpful before they've looked at it.

Did you get it recovered using Porsche Assistance? I believe that gets you up the queue

What actually happened with the car? Zero brakes at speed? Slow speed? Just once? Repeated? They're going to need as many details as you can provide.

I don't see a knee jerk being helpful before they've looked at it.

Did you get it recovered using Porsche Assistance? I believe that gets you up the queue

What actually happened with the car? Zero brakes at speed? Slow speed? Just once? Repeated? They're going to need as many details as you can provide.

lucky speed was slow so rolled to a stop - moments earlier it had been doing 70mph on a busy a38 at peak time !

assist recovered …………. but dealer not taking the potential consequences of this seriously, my family could have been killed yesterdays and if this is a design or component issue many others could be in serious danger

i think Porsche need to establish cause immediately and take appropriate action, if they won’t i guess i need to speak with VOSA as this isn’t a minor fault, its a potentially fatal one


I will sell the car as soon as repaired regardless, no way i’m putting my family in it again

 

[Clive]

More details please. No brakes at all from a higher speed would require that both regenerative braking and hydraulic braking failed to work. I'll guess you wife slowed normally until about 3 to 5 mph where regen stops and the mechanical brakes are supposed to have been blended in to bring the car to a stop. Not unknown for the transition to result in a "coasting" feeling that requires additional pedal travel to bring the car to a stop. It's not right and subject to multiple service bulletins. Possible your wife experienced an extreme case of this condition?

pedal to the floor - brake fluid gone ( all over the floor). This is a complete brake failure

it couldn’t even be driven onto recovery as could not stop or be held on brake when deck tilted

this is a serious and potentially fatal problem

i would not drive a Taycan until the cause / reason is established personally

 

[Murph7355]

....
i think Porsche need to establish cause immediately and take appropriate action, if they won’t i guess i need to speak with VOSA as this isn’t a minor fault, its a potentially fatal one

I will sell the car as soon as repaired regardless, no way i’m putting my family in it again

If it was a widespread, fundamental problem of complete failure, there'd have been more than one instance after 4yrs, thousands of cars and hundreds of thousands of miles.

How slow is "slow"?

Am asking as there's a known issue of long brake pedals. IME it happens at low speed (10-15mph) and is very unnerving...though has never lead to a bump (yet ). Anecdotally I think it has something to do with the way the brakes transition from regen to discs, which I believe happens around this speed.

There are service bulletins that cover the symptoms (brake flushing/fluid typically - I'm not convinced this truly fixes it), and dependent on the precise scenario where this happened, I would be surprised if they didn't look at doing those first.

 

[Murph7355]

pedal to the floor - brake fluid gone ( all over the floor). This is a complete brake failure

it couldn’t even be driven onto recovery as could not stop or be held on brake when deck tilted

this is a serious and potentially fatal problem

i would not drive a Taycan until the cause / reason is established personally

Ouch.

Be interesting to see what they find. And how quickly they look at it.

 

[gtm]

pedal to the floor - brake fluid gone ( all over the floor). This is a complete brake failure

it couldn’t even be driven onto recovery as could not stop or be held on brake when deck tilted

this is a serious and potentially fatal problem

i would not drive a Taycan until the cause / reason is established personally

That's beyond a serious problem when it happens in a 2 year old car. Please post when the cause is found. Thank goodness it happened at the speed it did and glad the family is OK, momentary panic aside.

 

[gnop1950]

pedal to the floor - brake fluid gone ( all over the floor). This is a complete brake failure

it couldn’t even be driven onto recovery as could not stop or be held on brake when deck tilted

this is a serious and potentially fatal problem

i would not drive a Taycan until the cause / reason is established personally

Sounds like a failure of the manual brakes, not the regen braking. I've had that happen in ICE cars I've owned, only two in the almost 60 years I've been driving. One was caused by a master cylinder failure the other by a broken brake line. Once the cars slowed down I was able to stop them with the emergency brake.

It sounds like something similar where the regen braking slowed the car as it would normally but when you got below the threshold where the manual brakes take over they failed. I wonder what the equivalent of an emergency brake is on an EV?

 

[Clive]

If it was a widespread, fundamental problem of complete failure, there'd have been more than one instance after 4yrs, thousands of cars and hundreds of thousands of miles.

How slow is "slow"?

Am asking as there's a known issue of long brake pedals. IME it happens at low speed (10-15mph) and is very unnerving...though has never lead to a bump (yet ). Anecdotally I think it has something to do with the way the brakes transition from regen to discs, which I believe happens around this speed.

There are service bulletins that cover the symptoms (brake flushing/fluid typically - I'm not convinced this truly fixes it), and dependent on the precise scenario where this happened, I would be surprised if they didn't look at doing those first.

what part of “brake fluid empty all over the floor” are you not understanding ?

the car has no brakes other than the regen - it could not be driven, not even onto the recovery trailer

something has failed big time and completely without warning - that’s the kind of thing that gets people killed

 

[Clive]

Sounds like a failure of the manual brakes, not the regen braking. I've had that happen in ICE cars I've owned, only two in the almost 60 years I've been driving. One was caused by a master cylinder failure the other by a broken brake line. Once the cars slowed down I was able to stop them with the emergency brake.

It sounds like something similar where the regen braking slowed the car as it would normally but when you got below the threshold where the manual brakes take over they failed. I wonder what the equivalent of an emergency brake is on an EV?

yes definitely manual brake failure with fluid gone

there is no emergency brakes, just regen which would do very little at 70mph

Porsche need to establish if this is a design issue ( rubbing of a pipe etc) or component failure very quickly imo as brakes should not fail on modern cars this new

 

[Murph7355]

what part of “brake fluid empty all over the floor” are you not understanding ?
...

You posted that after/during the other reply I made, hence the follow up.

Fingers crossed the dealer will step up.

 

[Boss Hogg]

Sorry to hear that, good nobody injured. Reads like catasrophic component failure, I thought there would be multiple fail safes in a modern car like a taycan. If dealer or Porsche GB do not respond quickly I'd get on twitter/X.

 

[gnop1950]

yes definitely manual brake failure with fluid gone

there is no emergency brakes, just regen which would do very little at 70mph

Porsche need to establish if this is a design issue ( rubbing of a pipe etc) or component failure very quickly imo as brakes should not fail on modern cars this new

From posts on here and the Porsche Manual about 90% of braking is from the electric motors, regen braking. If my meter isn't lying, most of the time when I stop from speed the manual brakes don't kick in until I'm almost stopped. I'm sure this would be a bit different during an emergency stop but by how much I have no idea.

Still, even at a slow speed, it is disconcerting when you can't completely stop your vehicle. I was lucky that the two times it happened in my ICE cars I was able stop safely.

I'll be interested if they can isolate what caused the issue. The mechanical brakes aren't normally used all that much so you wouldn't think it would be caused by wear and tear on a car that new.

I wonder what would happen if you pushed the Park button while still moving? I'm not going to try it but maybe someone else has.

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