Being ignorant in the field of car repair, I took my vehicle to my trusted mechanic this previous weekend to have the following service performed:
- Steering/Wheel alignment (Off by -2)
- Tire rotation and two new tires for the front
- Fix a hole in my muffer
- Oilchange
- Fix a transmission leak (Transmission filter/pan gasket & speed sensor - two leaks apparently)
I got the car back on saturday afternoon, and drove home. As I was driving home, I smelled a rubber smell (not burning rubber, but, just mild rubber smell) which at first I attributed to the new tires.
I parked my car at home and did not notice any problems such as fluid leaks or anything else. Two hours later, I decided to drive to a local electronics store to get some computer parts, and as I was coming down a hill towards a red light, I began braking and found that my brakes had failed completely - the pedal went straight to the floor with absolutely no resistence whatsoever. I managed to stop the car by pressing the brake pedal all the way to the floor to engage the manual assist, and gradually applied & then fully pulled the e-brake to assist with stopping. I came about 10 feet from flying into cross-traffic and hitting half a dozen cars.
Needless to say, I was shaken up and angry. Being saturday afternoon, there were no places I could send my car to, so I had it towed back to my apartment garage. In the garage, I began examining it to see if I could spot any brake fluid leaks, and found that brake fluid was leaking from around the left front wheel well.
I jacked the car up and peered under it, to see the brake line making contact with the left front wheel. It did not appear to be properly clipped to the wheel strut, and I surmised that this may have been due to carelessness or negligence on the part of my mechanic, but I'm still unsure of that.
Monday morning, yesterday, I towed the car back to my mechanic, and in the process of doing so, both the inner and outer sidewalls of the brand new left front tire completely disintegrated, leaving the tread intact. Upon outfitting my vehicle with the spare in my trunk, the tow truck driver immediately saw where the brake line had been worn through by the wheel and commented that I was extremely fortunate that this incident did not happen on the freeway.
Unfortunately, my webhost is down right now, so I can't post the picture I have of the disentegrated tire, but when my webhost comes back up, you can click this link to see a picture I took with my cameraphone.
At any rate, I need to get some opinions of experienced professional or amateur mechanics or 5.0 Mustang enthusiasts in regards to what might have caused this. I should be able to provide detailed answers to any questions you may ask that might help shed more light on this incident. Thanks ahead of time for any replies!