Catastrophic brake failure! How to pursue? (PICS)

[lewis s]

Sorry if this is a long winded post, but i am so pissed off at this situation its untrue and i need advice on how to go about this. Heres the story:

5 months (and roughly 500 miles ago) my girlfriends sister paid out £800 to service and get her Mini through the MOT (this is the first joke!). After the MOT she went off the car and it has sat pretty much dormant outside their house. A new car has been bought, so i offered to clean this one up and get some decent photos for the advert for her.

Her dad and my girlfriend drove the car to mine 2 days ago so i could get to work, but said it was making some weird noises so i offered to take a look at this as well.

Car back at mine, i clean it up and get the photos. Tonight i went to take it out to get fuel and 100 yards down the road the brakes are making a noise as if the discs are rusty, so i hit the brakes, theres a loud bang and i totally lose the pedal. Luckily this was down my estate at about 20mph so i limped it home on the handbrake and can see brake fluid pissing from the front drivers side wheel.

I got the wheel off, and here are some pictures of what i found:









As you can see the brake pad is totally missing and the brake piston is actually hitting the disc. This has caused the disc to shear off entirely around its circumfrence.

I took a stroll down the road and managed to find the pad. Not really what i was expecting!





And this car currently has an MOT and has recently been serviced! This could have quite easily killed someone, so how can i pursue this? I have not seen the paperwork and MOT yet to check where it was done but i will be getting it from my girlfriends house tomorrow. I have spoken to her Dad but i am not to sure if he understands the seriousness of the situation so am not sure if he will pursue this himself. So pissed off that people let people drive off in deathtraps like this

Edited by lewis s on Tuesday 21st June 21:50

[hondafanatic]

Errr...I can't offer any help.

I would, however, like to say fking hell. I'm glad you weren't injured or worse.

I'd be getting a £1 on the lottery ASAP if I were you.

[freecar]

You can't do anything.

An MOT is valid for the moment that the car is in front of the tester.

Your best recourse would be to find the guy that did the work and mention it to him, personally.

[Vulgar LS2]

Holy fk, pretty scarey, but I dont see how this can be the fault of the mot station, they don't check for fractures on the discs although it looks as if the pad material has fallen away putting a sudden stress on to the disc.

[mmm-five]

Did the MOT rectification work include the brakes, or are they as they were when it 'passed'?

I'm not sure what you can do after 5 months though, as anything could have happened to the car in the meantime, despite it ostensibly only doing 500 miles.

[Drive Blind]

when was the fractured disc last replaced?

[BliarOut]

It looks like the pad has worn so thin it's dropped out of the retainers and has scored it's way through the disc It would probably have been making a metal on metal noise for quite some time and could well have been felt through the pedal too IMO.

ANY service should have picked up on that degree of wear. If you 've got receipts and documented mileage I'd be inclined to pass the details onto trading standards as that falls below professional standards.

It even looks like part of a wear sensor welded to the pad?

[spaximus]

If as you say it has only done 500 miles I would be getting Vosa to have a look at this one. On the servicing and MOT side was this a side job or a proper garage?
If it is a side job I would say you have learnt a lesson, never trust someone who doesn't do it day in day out. If it was a garage I would calmly let them know what has happened and see the reaction. In truth a siezed caliper would wear away a pad easily in a short time but the driver would be pulling against the steering to keep it straight.

Be thankful it wasn't worse.

[lewis s]

I will look at the receipt tomorrow to see if it was done at a garage or not. And from looking at the other pad and the the disc it looks like they were beyond needing changing before the failure happened, the disc is very thin and heavily worn :/

[TallPaul]

Looks like the disc has fractured, causing the pads to break apart and fall out. After 5 months and 500 miles, its very unlikely the pads had been incorrectly fitted, or they'd have fallen out much earlier (probably on the way home from the service), I think you're being very unreasonable expecting to take an old shape Mini back to the MOT station and kick off at them after 5 months! Discs do crack and break, especially on older cars, maybe the service should have suggested replacing the aged discs, but to be fair, they do look to be well within the service thickness.
I suggest replacing both front discs, both front calipers, the rear drums and slave cylinders too- those front calipers look very tired!

[lewis s]

TallPaul said:

Looks like the disc has fractured, causing the pads to break apart and fall out. After 5 months and 500 miles, its very unlikely the pads had been incorrectly fitted, or they'd have fallen out much earlier (probably on the way home from the service), I think you're being very unreasonable expecting to take an old shape Mini back to the MOT station and kick off at them after 5 months! Discs do crack and break, especially on older cars, maybe the service should have suggested replacing the aged discs, but to be fair, they do look to be well within the service thickness.
I suggest replacing both front discs, both front calipers, the rear drums and slave cylinders too- those front calipers look very tired!

Those pads are far older than 5 months! This is why i need to look at the bill tomorrow and see if she had been charged for any brake work.

[TallPaul]

Actually, looking at the pics again, its quite possible the caliper has seized, putting strain on one side of the disc, stressing and breaking it. The trouble with older cars is they need to be used regularly & often, with plenty of intermediate checks as things deteriorate very quickly.

[BliarOut]

TallPaul said:

Actually, looking at the pics again, its quite possible the caliper has seized, putting strain on one side of the disc, stressing and breaking it. The trouble with older cars is they need to be used regularly & often, with plenty of intermediate checks as things deteriorate very quickly.

Look at the thickness of the pads

They've worn out and fallen out...

[TallPaul]

BliarOut said:

Look at the thickness of the pads

They've worn out and fallen out...

TBH, its been years since I did any work on an old Mini, how are the pads actually held in the caliper? It seems to me that the pad damage/wear is as a result of the "catastrophic brake failure" rather than the cause. I cant see pads falling out of a caliper because they're worn too low, unless something has caused them to become dislodged, like a broken disc?

[davepoth]

BliarOut said:

TallPaul said:

Actually, looking at the pics again, its quite possible the caliper has seized, putting strain on one side of the disc, stressing and breaking it. The trouble with older cars is they need to be used regularly & often, with plenty of intermediate checks as things deteriorate very quickly.

Look at the thickness of the pads

They've worn out and fallen out...

The one that has fallen out has. What I would suggest is that one of the two pistons has seized, so all of the braking was being done by one piston, which would explain the excessive wear (note part of that pad is a bit melted) and then it falling out. Can you take a look at the other pad? I bet it's nowhere near as bad.

The seized pot would then mean that the brake disc was being pushed out of true rather than being evenly clamped, which would account for the snapped disc.

[BliarOut]

Imagine them moving inwards past the retaining lugs till they drop onto the disc. You can even see the machining mark it's caused. Pad wore to the point of dropping out and then caused the disc to fail

[WhoseGeneration]

lewis s said:

Those pads are far older than 5 months! This is why i need to look at the bill tomorrow and see if she had been charged for any brake work.

Yes, however, presumably at the time of MOT test, the brakes provided the required figures?
Although, one would expect any competent tester to comment upon the condition of pads that were nearing replacement.

Eta, a Classic Mini?, I'd also be having the rear drums off.

[maniac0796]

For a rough guide, the brake pads have to be around the thickness of a 5p piece before they can be failed.

Discs can only be failed if they are insecure, cracked or excessively scored, pitted or worn

I'm gonna say that outer piston is siezed (look at the rust on it) and that after 500 miles on a siezed piston, on low brake pads, they would wear out damn quick.

Only if you've paid them for new pads and discs do you have a leg to stand on IMO

Edited by maniac0796 on Tuesday 21st June 22:35

[60]

Very lucky that you were only doing 20, good luck with the garage.

Lee

[lewis s]

I will have the caliper off tomorrow and check the other pad, but looking at the picture from above the caliper it looks pretty non existent as well.

Unsure whether it is worth me spending my time and their money repairing it (the car is a bit of a pup anyways) or whether just get them to stick it on ebay as is (The reason it is at mine is because i was cleaning it up in preparation to sell)