My WJ gave me a scare yesterday when I was a long way from home on a mission to collect a car with my flatbed trailer. I had been on the motorway for some time, cruising at 60mph, when I had to pull up to pay the toll. I braked gently because harder braking causes the trailer brakes to come on and when unloaded the wheels will slide and smoke.
When pulling away the Jeep felt sluggish and low on power. I was fortunate to find a side road to pull off the motorway and found all discs very hot. After a lot of messing about we just let the car rest and the discs time to cool. Problem gone and we went on our way.
The brakes have been recently renovated with new rear calipers and new discs all round. Of course new pads as well.
I have never met this fault before and there is very little on the net about it!
Any thoughts?
Grateful as ever.

 

I will address the trailer issue and that is to adjust the brake controller so they do not do that when empty either with the electronic control or the surge control.


Is there any chance that you might have been riding, edge of foot on the brake peddle a bit while on cruise, it happens at times accidently and even the slightest pressure would do that.

 

One thing I've found is when you grease the caliper pins, you have to make sure the grease goes inside the rubber bushings. Don't just lube the pins, but put grease inside the bushings first. Otherwise when you push the pins in, all the grease gets wiped off and left on the outside.

 

Dave that's an excellent point but I would not think that all 4 of them would happen at the same time like he stated, if one very possible even 2. Then all of them start working properly after cooling down would you?

 

Not clear on what is going on here. Is it being suggested that dragging brakes caused the sluggishness? Not saying that isn't possible. But my rotors get very hot. Too hot to touch just from normal driving around town. I don't notice the car is sluggish though and figured this is just normal. Maybe the sluggishness was not caused by dragging brakes.

 

I had one rear caliper hang up and the acceleration was sluggish and went I stopped, the brake was smoking! And stink? oh yeah.

 

Rear discs could get hot if the handbrake / parking brake is binding, also check the condition of the 3 flexi hoses at the rear, centre hose in particular - not unknown for a defective hose to cause fluid pressure to be maintained.
For the front brakes I would check if you still have the earlier Teves calipers which have something of a reputation for sticking - replace with the later Akebono calipers if this is the problem & again check the condition of the flexi hoses.