2003 Astro w/39,000 miles

FLORIDAMD

MEMBER
2003 ALL OTHER MAKES ALL OTHER MODELS

This is intermittent. After driving for a short period I turn the Van off. After about 5-10 minutes when I try to restart the engine, the brake pedal goes to the floor, the electrical system goes dead, and the whole Van is dead. First two times this happened I smelled electrical burning from under the passenger side hood. Dealer replaced brake booster and battery first time and altinator second time. Now, third time same scenario, but van starts and electrical does not go dead but brake pedal goes to floor and brake light comes on. After about 60 seconds brakes recover enough to drive. After about 5 minutes everything recovers to normal. Any thoughts?

2 Replies

FIZZAK

MEMBER
15 POSTS

Thats a shame such a new vehicle to have issue like that and to have brainless greedy mechanics replace parts that have nothing to do with the issue.

While I dont know much about late model vaccum systems I am going to guess that there is an electrical valve that is controlling the vacuum and it has shorted/failed depending on temperature conditions under the hood. If you didnt know already the vaccum/pressure system in the car controls the brake booster as well as other components. If there is no vac/pressure, the pedal will go to the floor. This vaccum and pressure is generated by a running engine only.