2005 police interceptor

I recently had a braking issue where I wanted to make a quick stop. The brake pedal sunk, the hood dipped but the car kept rolling despite pushing the pedal. One other person I know of has reported this same issue. Neither of us know why it happened. I took the car to the nearest Ford Dealer and nothing showed on the vehicles computers. Does anyone have any ideas of what might have caused this?

Normally the master cylinder is bypassing when this happens. Try holding the brake pedal down if it gradually sinks this is probably your problem. This won't show up on the computer.

was the abs working? have you had brakes done recently if so you will probablly have to do an ABS bleed

I am not sure if the car recently had the brakes done as our fleet manager takes care of this but I can find out. Also, this is the first time the problem occurred that I know of in this car. When this situation occurred I thought the brake pedal was all the way to the floor and felt "somewhat" firm. When I pushed on the brake though it felt like the pedal only went down about 3/4 of the way. I just knew the car was not going to stop because it just didn't feel right. It felt like the tires just didn't give me the road grip and I just kept moving. A person following me on a motorcyle stated that I should have been able to stop because he said I was only going about 10-15 mph. The mechanic at the Ford dealership has been test driving the car but it has not happened to him. In my original message I said that one other person had this same experience but I don't know if it was the same crown vic. As far as the ABS....the ABS light was not on and when trying to stop I never got the pulsing effect from the brake. If this additional information leads to any more ideas please help!

From what you have described, you have a classic case of brake fade. If you just replace the pads and do nothing else, then seat the pads in real slowly and carefully, the problem will go away. I have a lot of my techs still think you have to burn in the pads to make them work properly. Slow seating of the pads to the rotors are needed. After the pads are seated and brakes feel right, make 2 panic stops to activate the ABS. This will put your pedal back where it belongs.

In response to new pads.....the brake pedal did not stay in the 3/4 position and many panic stops have been done since the issue occurred. The mechanic says he has not been able to recreate the failure to completely stop within a reasonable distance as I had when it happened.

If the pedal felt like it bottomed out, but it was not on the bottom of travel, and you were pushing on a concrete block, you experienced brake fade. Have the mechanic remove the pads and see if they ahow signs of glazing or overheating. If yes, replace the pads.

I used to help out some of my sons friends with this type of problem. It was usually caused by them over greesing the bearings or not washing their hands after greesing the bearings. Sometimes I would remove a cup of extra greese from the rotor bearing surface. Then I would clean the rotors with brake clean. Then I would clean and sand the pads and sometimes the rotors depending on how bad they were. This always cured the problem unless a caliper was leaking brake fluid.
One time a kid told me he got his high performance mustang up to 100mph them jammed on his brakes and burnt the greese off. After to many tickets his dad took the Mustang and he drove a used Aerostar van from his parents business. He is a mechanic at this time.
Anyway is this a problem with police pads or poor workmanship? I'm curious about this problem.