Incidents involving my car in 2021

Between March 2021 and June 2021, there have been a number of incidents involving my car.

In late March, one of my friend came to Johor Bahru to visit me and we went for dinner together. I let him drive my car since he was interested to try it out. He commented about the brake of my car, saying that he had to step the brake pedal quite hard before the car would slow down. I had never noticed that previously and I realised he was right. However, I wasn't really concerned as I thought it had always been like that and I had gotten used to it.

One day in early May, when I was driving up the EcoNest multi-storey car park, I accidentally hit the edge of the ramp. It wasn't caused by brake failure, it was me being careless. I heard a loud noise, and as expected, one of the car tyres was punctured. I called a mechanic for help. He fitted the spare tyre and drove my car to his workshop to change a new tyre. He then mentioned the same thing my friend had previously said about the brake.

The mechanic said that the cause was either low brake fluid or faulty brake pump. He offered to refill the brake fluid and I agreed. However, it brought little improvements, which meant the issue was with the brake pump. He said that he would check the price of a new brake pump and let me know, but he didn't get back to me. Since the brake had been like that for quite a long time, I didn't bother replacing the brake pump.

In early June, the full MCO was implemented. For the first few days, I didn't drive my car at all. Then one day, I wanted to go to a restaurant in Bukit Indah to buy my lunch. As I was driving down the ramps of the car park, I suddenly found that the brake wasn't working. Even after stepping the brake pedal all the way to the floor, my car wasn't slowing down at all. Luckily, the brake could work after I let go of the pedal and stepped it again. Otherwise, it might lead to another punctured tyre.

I tried driving around EcoBotanic at low speeds. I found out that each time I wanted to brake, I had to step the pedal twice. It was quite dangerous and I realised that the brake definitely had to be repaired. I had to abandon my plans to go to Bukit Indah despite my craving for the food. Thankfully, that restaurant was available for delivery on GrabFood starting from the following day.

To avoid having to go up and down the ramps of the car park with a faulty brake, I parked my car outside EcoNest. There were many parking space available due to the full MCO. I contacted the mechanic who replaced the tyre previously. However, I had to wait a few days before his workshop received the permission to operate during the full MCO. Another workshop which I contacted didn't have the spare parts for my car.

The mechanic told me that the new brake pump would cost RM900. I discussed with my family members and they felt that it's reasonable, so I decided to go ahead with replacing the brake pump. However, I thought that the repair would take several days and I was having a number of sessions at the NUMed campus around that time. Driving to NUMed was still safe as it's just a short distance away and I made sure to drive only at low speeds.

Therefore, I waited until after my last session on 23 June. At that time, the mechanic said that the spare parts had to be delivered from KL, which would take several days. The spare parts arrived on 29 June and I could finally get the brake pump replaced. As it turned out, the repair was completed on that day itself. After the repair, there was clearly a huge improvement to the braking.

I hope there won't be any more issues with my car from now on.