Brake issues -- Could ESP be a problem?

Back in '07 my wife and I custom-ordered an '08 Wrangler Unlimited Safari. When we got it in, I loved it! One of the first things I noted about it was the feel of the brakes--possible the best-feeling braking system I'd ever owned with a very nice balance front and rear. Now I've got 50,000 miles on it and am finding some really strange things going on that don't make sense.

Back in February of this year I took the Jeep on a 700 mile trip down to Tennessee. I've made the trip many times, but this time I noticed that the brakes were starting to pull to one side or another--not consistently in either direction. While I was there, I started smelling hot brakes and discovered both my rear calipers were seizing; forcing a complete brake change on both rears of calipers, rotors and, of course, pads. Now, 4,000 mile later, my right front is starting to do the same thing, BUT when I hit the ESP Off button after it cooled I had no more dragging brake on the 25-mile drive home from bowling--no pull to the left due to hot right pad.

This leads me to wonder if the ABS/ESP system isn't acting up and applying some amount of braking at the wrong times. I don't necessarily want to pull the two ABS/ESP fuse/relays but if these two components can help me avoid burning up brakes I'm likely to do it. As it is, I'm not a fan of either system anyway because they tend to kick in at times you really don't want them to or like one experience I had on glare ice the ABS system thought I was at a dead stop while I was still sliding at about 15mph.

Can anyone offer some realistic advice? I come to you guys because you're serious about your Jeeps, not like some of the others who are more sarcasm than helpful.

When the ESP/BAS system comes on, you should see a light on your dash indicating it is activated. Are you saying it's activating but you do not see this light come on?

That's what I'm asking

Only once since I purchased this Jeep has that light ever come on due to driving conditions, yet now in only fifty thousand miles of driving I've had brake applications that don't make sense. Because of my experience in electronics I'm fully aware of how climate conditions can cause on-board systems to fail and I'm very suspicious of ABS due to a failure on an icy road that almost put me into a busy intersection when the system thought I was fully stopped. The only reason I avoided that issue was that I'd driven on ice before without an ABS in the car and knew how to handle it.

In other words, I don't trust either system because one locked up the wheels on ice and the other killed power when I needed it.

But I'm also willing to listen to advice from people who know their Jeeps better than I do. Dragging brakes caused me to replace both rear brake assemblies--rotors and calipers--at 50K miles. Now, only a few thousand miles later my right front is showing the same issue. What is the most likely cause?

Can you tell us a little more about your rig , do u have a lift ? What tires ? What size tires and are they wearing evenly ?


Sent from my JK

Bone stock--for now

mrmet1983 said:

Can you tell us a little more about your rig , do u have a lift ? What tires ? What size tires and are they wearing evenly ?


Sent from my JK

Click to expand...

Except for the tires, that is. I cut a sidewall on one of the original Bridgestone Duelers about a year after buying the Jeep at Rousch Creek in PA. I replaced both fronts at the time with a pair of Dueler REVOs and later replaced the remaining two original tires (at around 30 K miles) with another pair of REVOs. The Jeep itself is on the 18" wheels and the tire diameter is roughly 32". As yet no lift or other mods, though plan for some minor power mods (intake and exhaust mostly) and a 2"-3" lift to fit 35" tires (which of course means chipping the computer so maybe another power blip there).

Forgot to mention that I'm running the 6-speed rather than an automatic.

Other than the original tires wearing out at about 30K miles, they showed no unusual wear from alignment, inflation or balance. I've run the new REVOs about 20K miles and they show no unusual wear.

I'll admit I'm not a hard-core wheeler like most of you, but that's due more to not having a great crew like you guys to run with. I might not take some of the more extreme parts of the trails you do, but knowing that my Jeep can take me anywhere I need to go, any TIME I need to go is of huge benefit to me in the same way that Stomper served in Moore, OK after that massive tornado. For all that Ford and GM touted how storm-destroyed cars and trucks still ran, only one, a Jeep JK, actually helped save lives after the storm.

Have you checked ur master cylinder ? From what I'm hearing I can only think of two things off hand

1 you might have a clog in one of you break lines or even possibly dented only one line causing the amount of brake fluid to be restricted to that specific tire.
Or
2 you might have a defective or broken master cylinder

Ill run this past a few of my jeep buddies not on this site


Sent from my JK

The reason I query the ESP is the fact that the same thing happened to both rear brakes less than 3,000 miles before. At the moment, my local brake shop suggests that it's a clogged brake line, which is obviously possible, but that means that the original rear lines were clogged at one time as well which implies poor quality parts at the factory. Since I've not heard of this issue from any of the Jeep sites I do monitor, I find this difficult, though not impossible to believe.

As far as I can tell by looking, the master cylinder seems ok, fluid levels good and brake fluid normal. With the exception of the one brake at this time, all are currently working fine--at least, as far as I can tell.