Q: Rear passenger wheel locked up, what could this be?
I drove my car about 170 miles yesterday before taking it home and parking it in the driveway. I did not use the e-brake, never do. It set for about 3 hours before I needed to make a small trip out. It started up fine but once I put it in reverse it felt like something was keeping me from backing up, so I put it in drive and got the same result. Upon further inspection I determined the rear passenger side wheel was not turning at all. I left it running because the temperature was 18 degrees last night so I was giving it a chance to warm up. Finally the rear passenger wheel would spin with the rest of them when put in drive, but still locked up in reverse. I put it in park, again with no e-brake applied, and left it alone overnight. This morning it was back to being locked up in every gear again. Any ideas?
My car has 175683 miles.
My car has an automatic transmission.
Since you did not use the parking brake we can rule it out. If just before you drove in the drive you hit a lot of snow that packed into the wheel it may of packed to the point of locking wheel from moving. Try to back out and the drive forward to see if you can break up the packed snow and ice from the wheel. If there is no snow or ice in wheel then you have a seized brake caliper.
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