2006 Chevrolet Silverado 1500: brake failure

Filed Dec 4, 2025 · Brakes, Transmission · MT

I was driving down the highway at 65 mph and went to slow down and I had no brakes. Resulting in me having to go into the ditch to avoid a collision. After I was able to get the truck to slow down and to a stop I inspected my braking system to find all of my brake lines were rusted out and I had ruptured my brake lines. Since the incident I have had to replace all my brake lines and both of my brake cylinders on the rear of my truck. Now I have minimal brakes after bleeding them and they are slowly coming back. The truck has almost 400,000 miles on the chassis but a new motor. During this event I was getting a grinding coming from the rear differential, after inspection, I found that my gov lock was bad and needed new spider gears which I have since replaced the rear differential with a posi differential and have had minimal problems since.

Filed Jul 2, 2019 · Airbags, Electrical · 134,167 miles · MO

In late february 2019, I acquired a truck from a used dealership that I have done business with before. Upon obtaining this vehicle I started having issues right away. First issue I encountered, I was driving back to kansas city from lebanon,mo and all of the sudden my brakes went out and my steering locked up and truck started jerking really bad. I drove like this all the way home and took it to a mechanic and low and behold it's cost me $100 to repair the problem. Shortly after I noticed my truck was having issues with getting up to speed while getting on the highway. I would end up having the petal to the floor and it would still act like it didn't want to accelerate almost like a delay and then slowly gain speed. It felt as if it was slipping or it just wasn't getting any power. My oil pressure sensor had went out without me knowing at the time so I thought the problem had to deal with my oil pump. I finally took it back to the mechanic I used before and he ran a diagnostic test on my truck due to him not finding any issues besides my oil pressure sensor was defective. The diagnostic came back with multiple codes and 3 of them had to deal with the transmission. I decided to take my truck to my brother and have him look at it for a second opinion. Upon doing so he test drove and inspected the truck entirely and concluded that he didn't feel there was an issue with the truck at all. He ran his own diagnostic on it as well but his cane back with no codes that came up at all. So I drove off confused because of all the different information that was given to me on top of the problems I knew I was having because the truck wasn't running like it did when I drove it off the lot. Some time past and then another problem. My brakes and rotors were trashed and needed to be replaced asap and then my odometer started reading service air bag and would not go off.

Filed Apr 7, 2019 · Brakes · 165,000 miles · MA

Sudden loss of braking ability. One minute brakes worked, but pedal went to floor on subsequent use. Inspection revealed this was due to rust-through of the rigid brake lines on the driver's side frame

Filed Dec 4, 2017 · Brakes · 85,000 miles · MI · crash

Failure of brake line complete loss of brakes. Going out of driveway turn into a dte pole to stop

Filed Jun 21, 2017 · Brakes · 103,000 miles · MI

Driving my chevy silverado down the road. Hit the brakes for a deer and the brake pedal went to the floor. Smoke started coming out from under the hood. Fluid was all over the engine and on the road. Found that the metal brake line blew out. Talked to 3 companies about repairs. All the lines are rotten. Minimum cost is $500. All places said this is a common problem with gm trucks-even the dealer said oh brake lines go bad all the time on vehicles over 10 years old. I have been driving for almost 50 years; owned at least 20 vehicles and never heard of this happening. In case you don't know it-brakes are pretty important! I was lucky. No one was hurt. I was on a back road. I read that gm used low quality material for their lines. If so, it should be easy to break it down and verify. Was this metal susceptible to corrosion? They know all the conditions that their trucks will be in. How many more of unreported issues are there? Sooner or later it will be people's lives that will be lost. Thank you for your time.

Filed May 19, 2017 · Brakes · 180,000 miles · MI

Moving boat in my yard when brake pedal went to the floor, used emergency brake to stop. Brake line to left front was completely split open . Line is severely rusted in spots.

Filed Jan 27, 2017 · Brakes · 28,434 miles · PA

Loss of breaks,rusted out breaklines.pedal went to the floor,no breaks at all! (someones going to die)

Filed Nov 29, 2016 · Brakes · 175,000 miles · MD

The brakes failed while in motion. The cause was the steel hydraulic brake line to the rear wheels rusted and became too weak to hold braking pressure. Upon further inspection, all steel brake lines were very rusty.

Filed Aug 9, 2016 · Brakes · 89,411 miles · MD

The brakes went to the floor and completely failed; through the intersection we went. I was able to use the emergency brake to slow and then stop the truck. Somehow, we were able to avoid an accident. I was able to get the truck the rest of the way home using the emergency brake. The brake fluid reservoir was full, but I could see fluid leaking under the truck from the frame area near the driver's door. Looking under the truck, I noticed the brake lines were rusted; every brake line on the truck was rusted. Looking on-line, I noticed I wasn't the only one with this problem. I ordered a complete set of stainless steel brake lines. We had the truck towed the truck to the chevy dealer ($200.00). They replaced every brake line on the truck as well as the front calipers ($2100). The dealer did a great job; $1600.00 of the cost was for labor.

Filed Jun 5, 2016 · Brakes · 125,000 miles · VA · crash

Was traveling approximately 55 MPH down a state highway. After coming around a blind curve, came upon stopped traffic due to road work. Applied pressure to brake pedal when pedal went soft and depressed all the way to the floor. After releasing brakes and pushing again still had no brakes. Had to swerve out of road-way to avoid rear ending multiple vehicles. After running out of road, hit 2 culvert pipes along with road work signage, finally bringing the truck to a stop in a residential yard. Truck brake lines for front brakes had corroded and ruptured causing the incident. Further investigation into this matter shows an apparent issue with this model gms for brake line corrosion that gm has failed to address through the recall process.

Filed May 17, 2016 · Brakes · 96,000 miles · MI

Parked vehicle in driveway, moved it about three feet and braked. The pedal went to the floor. Looked under the truck and found a large puddle of brake fluid coming from a rusted through brake line. Upon further inspection the others were in the same state. Lucky this didn't happen with family onboard while driving on a roadway, could have resulted in a terrible accident.

Filed Nov 9, 2015 · Brakes · 48,000 miles · VA

There were two incidents with the 2006 silverado and both related to the steel brake lines. A) during inner city driving, the rear brakes failed. Cause was a broken steel brake line from the ABS module to the rear 'y' block. Believe the leak was closer to the rear axle. New stainless steel line was installed. B) again during inner city driving, the front brakes failed. One of the steel lines failed. It looked like the issue was near the ABS module. But in removing all of the remaining brake lines it was hard to tell what was the exact failure point. With the exception of the coated steel lines on the rear axle; all of the original general motors lines were in rusted/corroded state. All steel brake lines have been replaced with stainless steel lines. The truck belongs to my father [xxx] and was driving it both instances. His email is: [xxx]@aoc.gov information redacted pursuant to the freedom of information act (foia), 5 u.s.c. 552(b)(6).'