Help! Safe to drive? Knocking after car is turned off or door opened

Sound like you've got air in the line and you have no orange lights on the dash to be clear? Well so far so good and the red b r a k e is not lit all the time. Then I would say let it rip if your brake fluid low or high or right on the full mark? Usually the hammering knocking like that is something going on with the brakes maybe air in the brake lines.

 

I would say a flavor of the usual internal-leak situation. If pressure is leaking into a line when you're not using the brake, that pressure may have to be let off by repeatedly opening one of the pressure-release valves, a knock-like sound.

I could be wrong on the exact details, but the car is probably due for a replacement brake actuator. In gen 2 it's just the one part, simplifies deciding which part's needed.

 

I drove my green '07 for I don't know about 7 months with the actuator lights on on the dash that's the! VSC and ABS light in orange The red word brake on the left. And the car randomly squealing letting me know that all I have is old timey truck brakes If you don't know what that means don't worry about it means that you will be stopping very slowly but you will stop but if somebody will bust in here in a second until you I can't guarantee that No I can't mine stopped every time for the whole 7 to 9 months without incident with me forgetting that the stuff was broken at times etc etc no issues finally found a used one took it off put it on and that one was no good so I drove it another month in the same condition found another one that looked brand new at another towing lot somebody must have just bought it the actuator that is I took it off put it on this car we're discussing and been driving ever since so like I say I drove seven to nine months under similar conditions as you without any incident I'm not hauling any children pets old people others at all It's just me my tools and that's it.

 

Learn how to use and release the emergency foot brake. This will be a back up if your regular brakes fail. Practice. If you're going to go on the highway drive like an old guy like me. Maybe drive with your emergency flashers on.

Its not the safest choice to drive it as it is. But on the other hand it might be fine.

The worst that could happen: well you could get in a wreck and kill a family and be imprisoned for life and paralyzed. But that could happen any day you step outside your door and when you drive a car.

You have free will. Whatever you decide be aware of the downside.

If it was me, I'd do the trip but be careful.

If you were my daughter I would drive you in another car, send you by uber, or rent you a car for the trip.

 

The reality is that a 15-year-old car has negligible residual value, so I wouldn't put too much stock in that. You need to look at what car you can get for the price of the repair that would be of similar quality and comfort and I suspect the answer would be not much.

The part can be had for $1150 (plus tax) if you shop online at a genuine Toyota online parts store. One example is Olathe Toyota which has it on offer for $1,149.86 (down from the RRP of $1,716.21) - part number 44500-47091.

Maybe you can get your local dealer to price match. Watch out for them recouping the lost profit with inflated labor charges. I don't know what the book time on the job is, but it shouldn't be more than one or two hours.

 

Oh I bet book pays for 5 hours for this job I can do it in 2.2 pretty easily almost anybody can there's no special tooling required to do this job other than what you do for brake bleeding that's it everything else is done with brake line wrench 10 mm 12 I don't even think you need a 14 for this job It's pretty quick if you're using a used part you can boot the car up with the 12 volt to check that the lights are going to go out and all that before you proceed the button up everything and all of that I certainly wouldn't dump a pretty decent generation two for this problem. A generation 3 Yes I wouldn't do this because I know what I'm going to have right after I'm finished or what I have now but that's another whole issue.