 What's up, everyone? Takedown here. Welcome back to another video. Today, we're gonna be doing a storytime, and I haven't done a storytime in quite some time. And I'm surprised I didn't do this one until now because this is something that happens in the summer of 2020. And yes, like the thumbnail and title of this video suggest, my brakes caught on fire on my truck while I was driving. Let's get right into this. Yes, you heard that right. My brakes caught on fire on my truck on my 2010 GMC Sierra while I was driving. At the time, it was pretty scary, but at the end of the day, everything worked out. Now, what happened at the time, I was spending about a couple of weeks at my girlfriend's in Ottawa. And while I was there, we always go out to get our groceries. So earlier that day, me and Ashley went out to go get our groceries about a week's worth. And we got all of that done. So thankfully, this didn't happen while we were out with our groceries because that could have been a lot worse and a lot more hectic. But we managed to get all the groceries, go all the way home, and then we started to relax. Ended up going on Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji. And if you don't know what Kijiji is, it's basically like a Canadian version of Craigslist where you can buy and sell stuff. So I was just checking there for a PlayStation one. And I ended up finding an ad and that's when I bought my PlayStation one. And it was $40 included some games. And at the time, I was looking for a PlayStation one console for a really long time. Everyone that I seen online was having them way too expensive, more than what they're worth and trying to sell them. And I just couldn't afford spending about $100 for the console. When I seen this one for $40, I decided to go at the time and check it out. My girlfriend, of course, came with me and we drove all the way there. So from her house to that place was about maybe 20 minutes. It was in Canada. Now it all worked out. I ended up going liked it purchased it on our way home is when we started to get problems. So at the first intersection that we went, we're out of red lights. I noticed that the truck was starting to hesitate, at least a little bit. And I didn't know at the time what it was. I thought maybe a tire was starting to seize or maybe I had a flat or something. Because if I went over the speed limit of 40, if I went over 40 kilometers an hour, the truck would start to shake. And again, at the time, I didn't realize what it was, but we're still pretty far from home. So I was trying to make it. And I think the speed limit in that area was 80. I think at the time I was driving maybe 70. I didn't want to go the full speed limit. Of course, everybody was passing us, but I think I was going 70. And if I remember correctly, anything that I drove over 40 kilometers an hour, it started to shake. Luckily, I at the time had control of the vehicle, even though the steering wheel was shaking, I basically held on. It wasn't too hard to control. It wasn't really terrible and really stiff. And it kind of felt in a way like the power steering went out on it. So again, that's why I didn't know at the time what was happening. There was no smoke or anything. So at the time I didn't know my brakes were catching on fire. So we drive a pretty fair distance. We get all the way into Bell's Corners. And that's when there's a lot of restaurants and retail stores around, but it's still the same straight road from Canada all the way basically to her house. We just take this one straight road through the city. And when we're in Bell's Corners, that's when we started to hit a lot of red lights. And we started to notice there is a problem happening. Unfortunately, I passed Canadian Tire, which is usually where I take my truck. And I know a lot of people will roast me for that. But at least in my small town here, where I currently am, there's one guy that is really great with vehicles. And he's the only person that I trust working on my truck other than myself and a couple other people. So I drove past that one. Of course, at the time, it was a weekend. So I know all of the other shops are likely closed. And it was almost five o'clock at the time I knew Canadian Tire closed at five o'clock their shop in this area. So we ended up driving. I accidentally drove past it. And I decided, okay, we're going to pull into Giant Tiger's parking lots. And I'm going to check it out, see what's happening. I really don't know. I think it's fine to drive at least till we get home. And I can try to look at it and figure out what the issue is. But while we're at a red light, waiting to turn into the parking lots, I noticed, or I should say my girlfriend noticed a lot of smoke, black smoke coming from my left front tire. And right away, I knew there was a problem. I had everybody staring at us at the intersection. So when the light turned green for us to turn left, I basically gunned it as safely as I could. Gunned it left, made it into the parking lot, came to a halting stop. And I basically told my girlfriend as we're coming into the parking lot, as soon as I stop, get out of the truck. Because at the time I didn't know what it was. The smoke looks like it was coming from the tire. But from how it was coming out, it could have just as easily been coming from the engine. And like I said, when I was driving it previously, it was struggling whenever I was stepping on the gas and shaking. So I thought maybe power steering or something with the engine. At the time I did not know what was happening. So I ended up getting out. I popped the hood. And as soon as I got out of the truck, I realized the smoke is coming from the actual tire and it looked like the brakes were on fire. There was all black on them. It looked like they at one point might have caught on fire. Now myself, I did not see any flames, but they were pretty charred. All of the brake calipers, the brake pads, the rotors, and a little bit on my rims. So I figured they did catch on fire. So I ended up looking at it, crawling underneath with a little light that absolutely was not working whatsoever. Tried to figure it out. I called home, asked my dad, Ashley's mother called, or I think maybe she called her, and we're trying to figure out what to do with the truck. I knew at that point I was not going to drive it all the way home because what I assumed happened is the brakes on that side seized up. And that's eventually what ended up actually happening. That is the cause of this whole issue of the brakes catching on fire. It was the caliper that actually seized. So at the time we're trying to figure everything out. I popped the hood. I don't see anything leaking. So I don't think it's a brake line or anything that leaks. And I didn't want to pay $100 to $150 for a tow truck when it's literally two minutes down the road that I have to drive to get into the parking lot for a Canadian tire. I attempted to call them and at which point it was about 430 and they were not answering the phones. So I was like, crap, what do I do? I'm going to try to drive it there. So we get in the truck, we roll all the windows down just in case it started smoking again. And since we're on the phone for a while with my dad trying to get a hold of Canadian tire trying to call other shops and then we realized they were all closed. This smoke completely stopped. But we rolled our windows down because we assumed as soon as we start driving, even at low speeds, it might potentially start smoking again and continue to catch on fire because that brake caliper in my opinion is seized. But at the time I didn't know how far the damage went. A little bit of my rim was black. The rotors were completely black. The pads of course, completely black and the caliper was just torch. So I ended up putting my four ways on and I didn't drive more than 20 kilometers an hour just because I knew what it was previously. If I went over 40, it would start to shake. I didn't want to do that. And of course there was a lot of traffic at that time because that's near the start of rush hour in Ottawa. So everybody's heading home on this road. So I managed to turn right and I'm going 20. Everybody's passing us because it is a two lane road. So I have four lane road, but there's two going in one direction. So everybody's just passing and going around us. Nobody was really angry at that. They must have realized that there was a problem. Again to the parking lot for Canadian tire. I stop. I get out look again. They did not catch on fire. Second time there was no more smoke at that time. I go in and of course the shop had already closed. The mechanics already went home. The guy that worked service was already gone. So I asked the kid and he looks it up. He's like yeah, we do have a caliper. We do have the brake pads, the brake rotors. And I asked if you could book it in for Monday. And unfortunately in Ottawa, Canadian tire, whoever works parts only works parts. Whoever works service only works service. It was not like that in my small town when I used to work Canadian tire in the parts and service section. So he could not book me in. He could not help me. He said best bet is to call first thing Monday morning and see if you can get it in a little bit of unknowing there. So I ended up doing just that. And I said, hey, can I put my truck in the garage just because the area in my opinion, not the safest, but I wanted to be extra safe and put it in the shop. And that's something we used to do in my small town. If somebody requested their vehicle to stay in the shop over nights, by all means, the hoists are not being used. Bring the vehicle in. It's locked and secured in the building, but he would not allow it. He asked the manager, the manager said no. I said, okay, fine. I left it out there. I was a little bit worried. Come Monday morning, I called over and they got it in right away. Now, after about an hour to two hours of waiting to see what it is, he ended up calling back, made it all the way over. And what it actually was, like I've already mentioned, was just the caliper seized up. And of course, he called me earlier and asked me if I wanted to get the caliper done. And he put a new caliper in for me. Thankfully, all the other breaks were great. The brake pads, they were a little black, but it basically just rubbed right off. They still looked brand new. The rotors still look brand new. The rim, it was no actual damage. It was just all of the black from the caliper. So the caliper basically just seized up and caught on fire, which is crazy. None of the brake lines melted. Nothing else really melted under there. None of the sensors were affected or anything like that. So it could have been a lot worse than it actually was. And thankfully, this is all it was. But at the time, again, it was really scary just because there was a lot of black smoke coming from the front end of the vehicle. I thought it was the tire, but I couldn't tell it. It kind of felt like it was coming from underneath the engine. And with it struggling, I didn't know what it was. But now that the new caliper was put on, and he didn't really tell me what kind of caliper they were putting on, it was refurbished. But it ended up not being one that was coated. And when I worked Canadian tire, most of ours would be coated. I never had an issue with somebody's caliper that was brand new two months later, rusting out. And that's what happened with mine. My caliper right now on the truck is a bright, bright orange. And I ended up two months later whenever I realized that it was all of a sudden bright orange and it was supposed to have been replaced. I called over and he explained to me, yes, it's likely this, but bring it in. We're just going to make sure it's not defective. He looked at it and the mechanics basically like, yeah, it works. So it's fine. It looks kind of disgusting on the truck. It is a bright, bright orange. So I asked him about it and he looked it up and he's like, well, it's about $300 for a caliper, even though it's refurbished $300 for one that's coated. I can't justify paying $200 more for a coated one. So in the summer, this summer, I'm likely going to just take the tire off and tape off everything and just paint it with some of my rust paint that I had that I already painted on the truck that works beautifully. And it was amazing. I'm just going to go and paint my caliper myself just because there's no point in paying $300 for one that's coated. The caliper still works fine. I just, it looks disgusting on it. And just before this, I was painting the truck, getting rid of all of the rust on the truck. I was going underneath the trailer hitch, the rear end of the vehicle, the rear bumper with the water sits. It was all orange and starting to, if I would have left it, it would have eventually rotted out. So I dealt with all of that. And then they put the caliper on and two months later, it's all rusty and it looks just terrible on my truck. So I definitely have to fix that. But yeah, that is the story of my brakes catching on fire while I'm driving with my girlfriends. And it was just really, really crazy. So I definitely wish that I would have made this video back around the time it happens. That would have been a little bit better. I don't think I left out any details, which is good, but it was definitely a scary moment. At least I got my PlayStation one, but at least we are also safe and it wasn't anything major. It was just a caliper that I needed to get done. Again, that was something that I could have done, but I've never really liked bleeding brakes myself. So I was like, you know what? I'm going to take it to the shop. I'm going to let them do it. I didn't want to deal with bleeding my brakes just because it's just not something I like doing. I could do anything else on the vehicle, other than that. There's a few other things I don't like whenever it comes to working on my vehicle, but most of the time I'll just do it myself, except if it's one of the things that I just don't really like doing and I'd rather pay somebody to do it. So hope you guys enjoyed today's story time. I know it's been a while since I've done one, but this one was a pretty juicy one and a pretty interesting one if I must say. So I hope you guys enjoyed this video. I'm going to leave this here. Please take care. Peace.