Sudden brake failure - Scary!

[RedRacer]

Last Sunday, I going to take a long day trip to Mobile, AL, but only got as far as the corner of my street.  I stopped at the corner, and when I let off the brake the red brake light suddenly came on.  The yellow light is on and off all the time - probably not a good thing, but I guess I am used to it.  The next time I tried to stop- there was no power assist and it was extremely difficult to stop the car.  I managed to get back home.  If this had happened the day before- it could have been catastrophic; I was in Birmingham, AL, driving in the rain in heavy traffic.  Such a failure there would have led to an accident.

 

This is the second time this has happened.  The first time it happened was in the repair shop lot.  It turned out to be a fuse (according to the mechanic).  Now it has happened again and I am very concerned about the safety of my car. 

 

Any ideas what could be causing the fuse to go bad?  Is this a common problem with Reattas?

[Ronnie]

I don't believe blowing that fuse is common. I've had my Reatta for about eight years and I've never blown one. The pump not running is likely the cause of you to losing power assist. You could have blown that fuse again but if you have there is an underlying problem that is causing it to blow. The yellow light coming on wouldn't have any bearing on that. Has the red warning light been flickering when you first hit the brakes? If so you could be overworking the pump and that might cause the fuse to blow.

[RedRacer]

I agree there has to be an underlying problem- that is what concerns me... the red light did not flicker- there was no indication of trouble until the brakes went out.  As I mentioned-- the same thing happened in February (there is an earlier post from me on the subject). I only mentioned the yellow light as a bit of 'extra information.'  I am fairly clueless as to the workings of this car-

[Ronnie]

I agree there has to be an underlying problem- that is what concerns me... the red light did not flicker- there was no indication of trouble until the brakes went out.  As I mentioned-- the same thing happened in February (there is an earlier post from me on the subject). I only mentioned the yellow light as a bit of 'extra information.'  I am fairly clueless as to the workings of this car-

 

If the brakes still aren't working then it is the best time to troubleshoot the problem. You might find the following helpful to get you familiar with the brake system: About The Teves ABS Brakes

[2seater]

I have had mine 24 years and have never blown that fuse either so that would lead me to believe there is high current draw at some time to cause this. If not an intermittent short in the wiring, perhaps the pump motor is on its way out?

[DAVES89]

Ronnie if you remember just a month ago I had a problem with my brakes. I had a "semi hard" pedal with the Red and was tempted to take the Red home and drive the Black. But then the Red's brakes started working. The next day the brakes were "semi hard" again so I grabbed a pump/motor and an extra accumulator and pressure switch and headed over to my friends to get this corrected.

We started by swapping the relays to get the pump to run, that wasn't it. Then we swapped out the pressure switch with a known good one, that wasn't it either. We ran 12 volts directly to the pump and it wouldn't run. The motor was bad.

Swapped out the pump/motor and it was all good.

At no time did we check the fuse [to be honest I never thought of it] but even with a bad motor I never blew a fuse.

If you are blowing fuses something else is going on. I think that is the source of the issue.

Is the fuse blown now?