Extreme heat and burning smell coming from brakes

[CaliManDan]

I took my girlfriend out driving tonight (she has her permit) and she was practicing around town for about an hour. As we were pulling back into her apartment complex we noticed a really bad burning rubber or burning plastic smell coming from the car. When she parked I had her pop the hood, but didn't smell anything under there. So I kneeled down and smell both of the front tires but they were fine. When I got to the rear tires I smelled them and noticed an extreme amount of heat coming from them and a horrible burning rubber/plastic smell coming from them.What could cause only the rear brakes to smell like this and be that hot but not the front ones?

[vibedrivermatt]

maybe she was driving around with the parking brake on? she could have been burning up the brakes. easy mistake for a new driver to make. but my vibe has an alarm chime waring to let me know when the parking brake is on. its third gen though, unsure if vibes from previous years have this or not.

[dgekiere]

my 04 doesn't chime when it on. my wife left it on for 10 miles once and it smelled horrible. had to adjust the parking break back out when i did the rear brakes.

[Wolfman213]

Def agree with the parking brake on.

[CaliManDan]

Well if she was driving with the parking brake on...which everyone seems to agree on, then it was definitely more than 10 miles. Could something be damaged? Do I need to check out the brakes now?Hopefully everything is fine, and I'll just make sure to check to make sure the parking brake is down from now on.

[Wolfman213]

My guess is you simply wore down the pad some. It definitely wouldn't hurt to check them. Look in the DIY section in the great how to thread and you should be able to find some good pic of them and they will probably help you in determining if anything looks funny or not. I'm sure there will be some others that know more about rear drums that can clue you in as to other particular things to look at though.

[moonstonemike]

You should also check under the car mainly on the exhaust somewhere. Alot of times plastic bags will get stuck to a hot muffler or cat and just completely melt. Oh I just read there was alot of heat coming from the rear wheels. Ya than it was probably the e-brake

[vibolista]

Quote, originally posted by moonstonemike »You should also check under the car mainly on the exhaust somewhere. Alot of times plastic bags will get stuck to a hot muffler or cat and just completely melt. Oh I just read there was alot of heat coming from the rear wheels. Ya than it was probably the e-brakeThat's an idea, but your GF probably didn't release the parking brake all the way. The handle had another click to go to completely release the rear drums. Easy thing to do, especially if not familiar with the car. It only takes a little brake drag to gen up some real heat. Should not have done much damage, but as stated above... give them a check.