A cautionary tale...

[Mr Gear]

Early on Sunday morning I got in the car, and drove out onto the motorway. I drove for about 20 miles and then turned off the sliproad onto a 50mph duel carriageway. After a short distance, I was approaching some traffic lights as they changed orange, then red. I had to brake hard to stop in time, but normally this wouldn't have been a problem - but on this particular occasion, the car just refused to slow down at anything like the usual rate. The car sailed about 10 feet over the stop line.

It then occurred to me what just happened. This was the first time I had actually had to use my brakes since getting in the car that morning! Because I don't use the car often, they had rusted up and were not up to the job of a hard stop when required.

So a word of warning - give your brakes a chance to bed in if you have left the car standing for any length of time.

[ali4390]

Could have been very nasty, some good advice.

[Gizmo!]

Because I'm only using the MX5 infrequently at the moment I get this almost every time I get in the car... my road has speedbumps so I can always get a few hard stops in (assuming there's nothing behind, etc) before the end of the road to avoid the same unnerving situation.

[WeirdNeville]

Part of the advanced driving course I did was a brake check every time you get back in the car. You can build it into normal driving, but basically, as you start the engine you have your foot on the brakes, and you feel the pedal sink a little as the vacuum assist kicks in. This tells you that the assistance is working.
Then after moving off, you do a "low speed brake test" - just bringing the car to a halt with moderate brake pressure to check that everything works and the car doesn't pull under braking.

Finally, you do a "high speed brake test" which is just a stop from A-road speeds with firm brake pedal pressure, again to check everyhting is working.

I've found this useful for a number of reasons, not least because it stos you from wondering if the brakes are working the first time you come to need them!

[anonymous-user]

Happily, i have two roads out of the close converge right in front of my driveway, and then a t junction about 40 yards away, so my brakes get tested twice before i get onto the main road, but yep, as the OP said, check them before you need them, could be expensive otherwise

[sday12]

Mr Gear said:

duel carriageway

????

[Mr Gear]

sday12 said:

Mr Gear said:

duel carriageway

????

Yes, that is what I meant.

[sparkyhx]

I used to run Ferodo DS2500 pads which were not brilliant when cold so I'm already 'aware' of this. Run I'm on yellows now and they are better from cold.