Brakes but no brakes!!!!!!!!!
Discussion
A friend of my wifes came around the other day to ask if I would drive her car as she said she felt the brakes were very poor.... Its an older VW Golf.
I jumped in the car and pressed the brake pedal, which was nice and firm and felt normal. I drove off down the road and applied the brakes hardish... It felt like the car had NO BRAKES!
I jacked it up to look at the pads and found that someone had fitted discs that were about 10 cm to small! What had happened was the pads had worn until they had met in the middle and were pushing against one another, rather than the Disc!
I cut the step off one pad each side with a hacksaw so she could drive home...
She just phoned me to say she took it back to the garage where she had the pads and discs fitted as part of a service 2 years ago... I took some photographs on her phone and she showed the manager there. She said he was gob smacked! He looked back in the records to see which mechanic had done the job and said they sacked him ages ago due to his work...
They are replacing the discs and pads, and giving her a free service!
I jumped in the car and pressed the brake pedal, which was nice and firm and felt normal. I drove off down the road and applied the brakes hardish... It felt like the car had NO BRAKES!
I jacked it up to look at the pads and found that someone had fitted discs that were about 10 cm to small! What had happened was the pads had worn until they had met in the middle and were pushing against one another, rather than the Disc!
I cut the step off one pad each side with a hacksaw so she could drive home...
She just phoned me to say she took it back to the garage where she had the pads and discs fitted as part of a service 2 years ago... I took some photographs on her phone and she showed the manager there. She said he was gob smacked! He looked back in the records to see which mechanic had done the job and said they sacked him ages ago due to his work...
They are replacing the discs and pads, and giving her a free service!
anonymous said:
[redacted]
They are a large Independent garage. They have handled this well, no quibble, full apology, putting it right and a free full service and valet.She said the brakes have been feeling funny for a while, but she is qute a steady driver and light on the brakes...
When I hit the brakes, the car hardly slowed! I guess it was braking on the rears only. it was a strange feeling as the pedal was hard and near the top... I guess it would have been!
Golfs have numerous disc options over the years making it a minefield.
I almost made a mistake as my GTI, though a 96 registration, is a 97 model using bigger brakes so I had to go out with a ruler and measure them. I suppose if you slap new discs on and then bang the caliper back on quickly, you might not notice depending on exactly what the difference in size was.
I almost made a mistake as my GTI, though a 96 registration, is a 97 model using bigger brakes so I had to go out with a ruler and measure them. I suppose if you slap new discs on and then bang the caliper back on quickly, you might not notice depending on exactly what the difference in size was.
Ozzie Osmond said:
That is a truly spectacular cock-up!
Presumably this car was passing MOT tests without any difficulty....
Why wouldnt it? The wheels aren't removed and depending on the calipers it could be very difficult to see.Presumably this car was passing MOT tests without any difficulty....
And they would pass the efficient test.
You'd be amazed how bad brakes have to be to fail an MOT.
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