This happens intermittently, and only twice so far. It's reaching around -15 (C) and under these days - worse if you factor in the windchill.

I usually let my car run for a few minutes in the morning to warm it up a bit - when I go to drive away, I notice that twice now, the brake pedal has been very stiff. If I give it a few pumps, it returns to normal.

Nothing overly serious - my main concerns is that this isn a sign of something starting to go and I'm going to be left on the highway with no brake pressure. My gut feeling is it's cold related, however it still indicates something is going on.

e-brake is not being used due to the cold weather. Bought the car last summer (have put on around 7k miles on it). At the time of purchase, owner indicated that he had had the brakes done (trusted local mechanic). I'm assuming this meant just rotors/pads - nothing to do with the hydraulics of the sytem or anything like that.

Car has 145k KM on it. thoughts on components which could start to fail at this type of mileage?

 

It's a curious phenomenom, but my guess is that you have a bit of water in the brake lines. When was the last time you has the brake fluid changed/ brakes bled? If the color of the fluid in the master cylinder isn't a clear/light yellow, then it's time to get it changed. There are plenty of threads on the org discussing brake fluid and what type to use. DOT 4 seems to be quite popular.

At 145,000 Km (approx 90,000 miles for us 'mericans), I wouldn't think that anything would start to fail. However, since you don't likely know the intimate service history of the car, anything is possible. Most likely components to go, imho, seized parking brake cable, dry rotted rubber brake lines, seized brake caliper.

 

As I mentioned, the previous owner most likely had it done just prior to me buying the car - so over the summer (brake bleeding).

Thanks for the suggestions - hopefully things will hold out until it gets warmer at which time I can check the sytem thoroughly.