Brakes failed and steering locked in my cruiser

[chellabella]

Yesterday when taking kids on the school run my Pt Cruiser 2.4limited edition (8 months old) suddenly decided not to work. Brakes failed to work - horrendous shuddering and loud noise from engine which felt like driving over a cattle grid. Steering wheel locked into one position. Ended up mounting a kerb as no control over car other then pulling up handbrake to slow car right down to escape killing myself and my 3 young children.
Chrysler towed car to garage and had a look at car and found absolutely nothing wrong with it. They are bringing car back to me today after trying it out in the cold this morning to see if happenes again.
i do not want this car back until they find what happeend yesterday as i am not prepared to risk it happening agin and this time not being so lucky.

Has this happened to anyone or can anyone help at all ??
Thank You

[CREWZIN]

chellabella,

About the only way I know of to lock up the steering wheel is to turn the engine off and remove the key. My camshaft sensor wires failed (burnt) at high speed which caused my engine to turn off but I was still able to steer my PT over to the side of the road and bring it to a stop. Having the engine die will also cause the power assisted brakes to feel like they have failed also. The shuttering and loud noise is a mystery, and you say it drives OK now with nothing found by the dealer?

To answer your question, I've never heard of your problem on any of the forums I go to. A guess would be a short circuit in the ignition system which caused the engine to shut down, power brakes to fail and somehow make the steering think your key was turned off to cause it to lock up.

Hopefully, someone will come up with something better for you.

[SRG]

Uhmmmm, are you sure the car didn't simply stall?

If the car stalled you would lose instantly the power steering assist and the power brakes. It would make it much harder to both steer and brake the car.

I don't know how hard it would feel, as I never had a PT stall on me... yet.

srg

[bobs turbo pt]

sounds like car stalled and with that you loose power steering power brakes , in loosing power brakes if you were on the brakes hard it could make a shuttering feeling in the peddle or if the wheels were sort of hoping ?? give us informed on what you find out

[SuperTroy]

My car did something like this this morning my wheels suddenly locked up but I couldnt control the car and the car went sideways but i could still turn the steering wheel but didnt do much help.

[quicksilverdon]

Originally Posted by SuperTroy

My car did something like this this morning my wheels suddenly locked up but I couldnt control the car and the car went sideways but i could still turn the steering wheel but didnt do much help.

Unless you were on ice, I suspect your steering rack went.