I am on vacation right now when this happened. We drove from central mn on we'd to the black hills of sd, until this afternoon everything was fine. While here we have driven around with no issues. This afternoon we went to mt rushmoore. We drove up the mountain and back drown for gas. On the way down we got stuck behind a bus on a very steep grade. When we got to the gas station I smelled something like burning rubber but thought it was the old tuck by us. We drove back up the mountain and parked for a few hours. After that we went down the not as steep side and drove 20 miles back to camp. When we got back I realized my right rear tire was very hot and stunk. I threw water on it and it boiled right off. I am concerned about what to do now. I have to drive home on Sunday and am quite concerned about this.

 

A few questions: What year is your van? If it's 2007 or earlier, does it have disc or drum brakes on the rear? Do you use the parking brake at all when you park it?

It sounds like you have sticking or seizing on the rear right wheel. The above questions will help others figure out what kind of setup you have and what might be causing the problem.

 

as per above, your brake is stuck on. This will cause very bad gas mileage and the brake system will soon fail to the point of stranding you. I would advise you to visit a dealership or 3rd party chain repair shop for the repair BEFORE Sunday drive home. Tell them about the symptoms. Simply replacing the pads or rotors will absolutely NOT fix this issue, so avoid the village idiot brake shop. Assuming you have rear disc brakes, the floating caliper pins are rusted or have no lubricant on them or the caliper piston is seized from rust or the pad backing plates are jambed in the caliper mounting brackets due to rusted brackets or rusted springs or insufficient clearances. The only reason to change the pads or rotors would be due to one of the troubles I mentioned causing them to burn up to total failure. Believe me, the terribly worn and burned up pads they will find didn't cause this problem. Make sure nobody just does a quickie brake job for you because it will fix NOTHING. Aside from a new caliper which is probably not needed, the parts I described that may be causing you problems such as hard and soft parts kits or new caliper bracket vary between $10 and $60 per wheel. A brake caliper bracket is normally never needed to repair brakes, but Dodge somehow found a way to screw up the factory machined clearances on some of these brackets around 2010. In these cases the pad backing plates may jamb and fail to release so some grinding, filing or replacement brackets are necessary to get the pads to relax (reset) when the brake pedal is released. These brackets in the aftermarket are $30, but may not be in stock many places. I'd avoid a dealership or factory parts counter when procuring brackets because they created the problem in the first place.. but on Vacation you may have no choice.

It is very hard to provide better information without knowing what year van you have. If your van is 2007 or older, ignore my post. There are literally dozens of recent threads about this subject focusing on the 2008 and newer brake syst em which are all the same except for some brand new vehicles with 17" wheels. Obviously you don't have one of those or you'd be under warranty.
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