2008 liberty rear brake problem

brigitte1200 · **Joined:** Wed Jul 16, 2014 5:12 pm **Posts:** 11

My 2008 liberty has had rear brakes that stick. One day the left rear will heat up and smell really bad. Everything will be ok for a week or so then out of the blue the other brake will heat up. Sometimes they both will overheat at the same time. But then the car will be fine for a few weeks. My husband seems to think that the hill assist is causing the brakes to stick. Has anyone ever had this problem? I am afraid to get take it to repair shop to get it fixed until I can pinpoint what the problem is. Being that it is happening on both rear wheels, could it be the master cylinder or brake line?? :?:

Gageraid · **Posted:** Wed Jul 16, 2014 6:50 pm

I see this is your first post so welcome.
Hill start assist does in fact hold your brakes for a second or so.
Are you hearing any weird noises when you apply the brakes at speed?
I do believe I've heard about this problem before, so hopefully someone else can chime in as well.

brigitte1200 · **Joined:** Wed Jul 16, 2014 5:12 pm **Posts:** 11

It makes no strange sounds. We notice that the brakes just start to stick at random times. The wheel gets real hot. But the next time we drive it there will be no problems. My husband took a look at the brakes and rotors and calipers. He says that everything seem to look fine. It is very tricky. I don't want to take it to a jeep mechanic and have them replace a bunch of parts that don't need replaced to find the problem.

JeepMonkey190 · **Posted:** Wed Jul 16, 2014 8:11 pm

brigitte1200 wrote:

It makes no strange sounds. We notice that the brakes just start to stick at random times. The wheel gets real hot. But the next time we drive it there will be no problems. My husband took a look at the brakes and rotors and calipers. He says that everything seem to look fine. It is very tricky. I don't want to take it to a jeep mechanic and have them replace a bunch of parts that don't need replaced to find the problem.

Just keep an eye on them because there has been a few of us in the last couple of months that have had to replace the back calipers do to them sticking completely closed and not letting go but as for hill assist you do have to be on a decent size hill but for me the hill assist really holds on for just a second then let's go quick.

brigitte1200 · **Joined:** Wed Jul 16, 2014 5:12 pm **Posts:** 11

Thanks for the info. I hope it will be something as simple as the calipers, but it is strange that both sides are acting up at the same time. Do you think that if it is the calipers they would eventually stay stuck for good?

Gageraid · **Posted:** Wed Jul 16, 2014 9:32 pm

brigitte1200 wrote:

Thanks for the info. I hope it will be something as simple as the calipers, but it is strange that both sides are acting up at the same time. Do you think that if it is the calipers they would eventually stay stuck for good?

I wouldn't be surprised if they do end up sticking worse soon.
How long has it been happening for?

brigitte1200 · **Joined:** Wed Jul 16, 2014 5:12 pm **Posts:** 11

They have been on and off for about a month.

JeepMonkey190 · **Posted:** Thu Jul 17, 2014 1:22 am

Gageraid wrote:

brigitte1200 wrote:

Thanks for the info. I hope it will be something as simple as the calipers, but it is strange that both sides are acting up at the same time. Do you think that if it is the calipers they would eventually stay stuck for good?

I wouldn't be surprised if they do end up sticking worse soon.
How long has it been happening for?

Agreed, but I don't see why they couldn't stick at the same time.

tommudd · **Posted:** Thu Jul 17, 2014 8:21 am

A) Could be calipers, or could also be the slides are dirty/ rusty and needing to be cleaned and lubed.
B) Also another thing is the flexible lines could be deteriorating and partially closing up at times.
C) How long has it been since the brake fluid was flushed out good?
Without visually seeing the parts and the condition of them its hard to pinpoint a real problem

brigitte1200 · **Joined:** Wed Jul 16, 2014 5:12 pm **Posts:** 11

My husband took the wheel off and checked everything. He says that everything looks fine. He did lube everything up. And that is a good point about the brake fluid. We haven't had the jeep very long so we don't know when it had been flushed or changed. The jeep did have new rear brake pads on it when we got it. I am wondering if the previous people got rid of it because of this brake problem.

tommudd · **Posted:** Thu Jul 17, 2014 10:09 am

If it was mine or someone brought theirs to me, I'd flush the system first, ( could be moisture/dirt in there). After that then pull the calipers and push the pistons in to see if they feel like they are sticking or not. Buy a new hardware kit and install them . Then see what it does. next up ( if calipers appear good) is checking brake lines etc

brigitte1200 · **Joined:** Wed Jul 16, 2014 5:12 pm **Posts:** 11

Thanks for the advise, I don't know why jeeps are so tricky. I bought this jeep for my daughter. She had a 2009 patriot and totaled it back a few months age. That jeep also gave us a lot of trouble. But she loves jeeps.

mawlkrawler · **Posted:** Thu Jul 17, 2014 3:31 pm

brigitte1200 wrote:

Thanks for the info. I hope it will be something as simple as the calipers, but it is strange that both sides are acting up at the same time. Do you think that if it is the calipers they would eventually stay stuck for good?

First off welcome to the forums!!

I had this exact same issue. I've had it since I hit 20k miles ( I just passed 70k). It started on the highway one day. I could feel some resistance the rear driver side wheel like it was dragging. I pulled over and noticed that the wheel was extremely hot. I let it cool off a bit and hopped back on the highway and could still feel the wheel dragging. It happened a few more times until one day it stopped. What likely happened was the caliper was stuck and it just wore the brake pad down so much the pad wasn't really doing much anymore. It wasn't until I replaced the rear pads (mind you I've gone through 2 sets of rears before ever changing the fronts, which shouldn't ever happen) I noticed the problem came back after changing the rear pads out. I came to the conclusion that my rear driver side caliper piston must be sticking because I had to use A LOT of force to push it back in with a C-Clamp while I was changing the pads out.

I picked up a new rear driver side caliper at my local dealership for $40 with a $20 core deposit. Went hope, swapped out the faulty caliper, and haven't had an issue since. I noticed a difference immediately.

You can kinda figure if your caliper is stuck if you have an automatic, come to a stop on a flat surface, release off the brake, and if you don't start rolling forward after a few seconds (in case hill assist kicks in) you have a brake issue.

Hope this help!

Sent from my iPhone

brigitte1200 · **Joined:** Wed Jul 16, 2014 5:12 pm **Posts:** 11

Thank you very much. This sounds very much the same like mine. I just am afraid both calipers need changed. I am going to try the test on the straight road hopefully I can figure this out.

brigitte1200 · **Joined:** Wed Jul 16, 2014 5:12 pm **Posts:** 11

Could all this trouble be caused by the master cylinder?? :idea:

Gageraid · **Posted:** Thu Jul 17, 2014 8:06 pm

brigitte1200 wrote:

Could all this trouble be caused by the master cylinder?? :idea:

I don't think so. I believe your front brakes would be having the same issue or complete brake failure if it were the master cylinder.
I recently had a problem with my front brakes and all that needed to be done was lubing of brake components.

brigitte1200 · **Joined:** Wed Jul 16, 2014 5:12 pm **Posts:** 11

Yep. I am hoping it is something more simple. My husband did take the brake parts apart today and lube everything up and check everything out. Everything looks and seems to be fine. I think if it happens again we will replace the calipers first since that seems to be a common issue with everyone's liberty on here. Thank you everyone for your help.

Greenwing7 · **Posted:** Fri Jul 18, 2014 5:03 am

viewtopic.php?f=88&t=79480

i had 3 of mine all start sticking recently, It was a midwest (salt) vehicle 2008 and i also spend some time on beaches and lots of dirt.

mawlkrawler · **Posted:** Fri Jul 18, 2014 10:17 am

brigitte1200 wrote:

Yep. I am hoping it is something more simple. My husband did take the brake parts apart today and lube everything up and check everything out. Everything looks and seems to be fine. I think if it happens again we will replace the calipers first since that seems to be a common issue with everyone's liberty on here. Thank you everyone for your help.

Let us know what he finds. If you end up changing out the caliper just know it's not that hard. I have no Idea what I'm doing and it only took me a couple hours working solo haha

Sent from my iPhone

Gageraid · **Posted:** Sat Jul 19, 2014 4:10 am

mawlkrawler wrote:

brigitte1200 wrote:

Yep. I am hoping it is something more simple. My husband did take the brake parts apart today and lube everything up and check everything out. Everything looks and seems to be fine. I think if it happens again we will replace the calipers first since that seems to be a common issue with everyone's liberty on here. Thank you everyone for your help.

Let us know what he finds. If you end up changing out the caliper just know it's not that hard. I have no Idea what I'm doing and it only took me a couple hours working solo haha

Sent from my iPhone

Please report back if the issue occurs again. Be careful in the meantime!

2008 liberty rear brake problem

Who is online