Changing front discs and pads - worth trying myself?
Discussion
Hi there folks,
Well, having already spent thousands this year on my XJ8 (2000 reg) the local indie has now found the front brakes are binding and need freeing and new pads and discs need fitting.
A couple of questions:
Why are they doing this - won't they continue to do this even with new pads/discs fitted?
Is it worth me having a crack at doing the work myself - how much is it going to cost if I do let the dealer do it versus how much on parts if I do it myself? (Their labour rate is 55p/h)
I have to say this XJ8 which I have owned for a year has been without question by far the most expensive car I have ever run (and I've run two TVR's - in fact running my Griffith (at one stage as a daily driver) is positively frugal compared to an XJ8. I have spent around £5000 in 12 months and that's using independent Jag specialists keeping this £4k car on the road (timing chains, tensioners, water pumps, head gasket, gearbox oil change, bushes, dampers, ARB drop links, traction sensors and now pads, discs etc) I love the car but my god I am so so sick of the bills. Perhaps a lesson to those out there contemplating running an old XJ8 thinking it's a cheap luxo barge as I did. Incidentally car was fully inspected before purchase by a Stratstone main agent when it had 79000 on clock before purchase, it now has 96000.
Car was bought from company Director, had FSH main agent to 50 000 miles, then Jag indie FSH except one bill which owner said he had lost but had been done and yet boy oh boy have I suffered with this car.
Seriously considering chopping it in and going back to my R reg 1997 Diesel Passat which so rarely ever went wrong and cost about £300 a year in bills on average! Or maybe a newer Jag but frankly I do wonder if Jag are just made of chocolate and built by cavemen! Any cachet the brand had for building great motor cars and which I frankly fell for is not evidenced by my experience!! The Landy Discovery incidentally belonging to my wife similar age similar mileage is parsimonious in comparison to the Jag, its reliability the equal of a Toyota over the past 2 years!)
Views? I keep getting the bloody thing fixed thinking I've had so much done to it that nothing else could possibly go wrong and it must be the best XJ8 in the country and now this!
Saxon
Well, having already spent thousands this year on my XJ8 (2000 reg) the local indie has now found the front brakes are binding and need freeing and new pads and discs need fitting.
A couple of questions:
Why are they doing this - won't they continue to do this even with new pads/discs fitted?
Is it worth me having a crack at doing the work myself - how much is it going to cost if I do let the dealer do it versus how much on parts if I do it myself? (Their labour rate is 55p/h)
I have to say this XJ8 which I have owned for a year has been without question by far the most expensive car I have ever run (and I've run two TVR's - in fact running my Griffith (at one stage as a daily driver) is positively frugal compared to an XJ8. I have spent around £5000 in 12 months and that's using independent Jag specialists keeping this £4k car on the road (timing chains, tensioners, water pumps, head gasket, gearbox oil change, bushes, dampers, ARB drop links, traction sensors and now pads, discs etc) I love the car but my god I am so so sick of the bills. Perhaps a lesson to those out there contemplating running an old XJ8 thinking it's a cheap luxo barge as I did. Incidentally car was fully inspected before purchase by a Stratstone main agent when it had 79000 on clock before purchase, it now has 96000.
Car was bought from company Director, had FSH main agent to 50 000 miles, then Jag indie FSH except one bill which owner said he had lost but had been done and yet boy oh boy have I suffered with this car.
Seriously considering chopping it in and going back to my R reg 1997 Diesel Passat which so rarely ever went wrong and cost about £300 a year in bills on average! Or maybe a newer Jag but frankly I do wonder if Jag are just made of chocolate and built by cavemen! Any cachet the brand had for building great motor cars and which I frankly fell for is not evidenced by my experience!! The Landy Discovery incidentally belonging to my wife similar age similar mileage is parsimonious in comparison to the Jag, its reliability the equal of a Toyota over the past 2 years!)
Views? I keep getting the bloody thing fixed thinking I've had so much done to it that nothing else could possibly go wrong and it must be the best XJ8 in the country and now this!
Saxon
Hi Saxon,
You have spent a lot of money on your XJ! I have changed pads and discs on my old XJ and my current one, it is a fairly easy and straightforward job to do and really not dis-similar to any other car in that respect.
Be careful when slackening off the bleed nipples as I had one sheer off on my old car and had to buy a new caliper as well!
But a good quality socket set, torque wrench and a long reach bar (easier to apply force) should be all you need.
I think from memory, I paid around £80 for the discs and about £50/60 for the pads from an indy.
Good luck!
You have spent a lot of money on your XJ! I have changed pads and discs on my old XJ and my current one, it is a fairly easy and straightforward job to do and really not dis-similar to any other car in that respect.
Be careful when slackening off the bleed nipples as I had one sheer off on my old car and had to buy a new caliper as well!
But a good quality socket set, torque wrench and a long reach bar (easier to apply force) should be all you need.
I think from memory, I paid around £80 for the discs and about £50/60 for the pads from an indy.
Good luck!
You'll need to find out wht the pads are binding first. When was the brake fluid last changed? Fluid acts as a lubricant and if it's seriously deteriorated it will have lost some of its lubricationg property.
Pads are actually pushed free from the disc by the rotational force of the disc and a tiny amount of permissable disc run out when you release the brake pedal. If the piston is slightly binding in the caliper due to either a dust seal failure allowing the exposed part piston to corrode, contaminated brake fluid or swollen seals inside the caliper then the pads won't always won't get pushed free of the disc.
If the fluid is more than two years old it's worth changing to protect and preserve the calipers master cylinder and ABS module, even if its not causing calipers to stick yet.
Clean off all the bleed nipples with a wire brush, give them a shot of WD 40 and wait 10 mins. Then give the top of each one a smart tap with a hammer. Use the correct size (11mm IIRC) fitting single hex ring spanner and you'll get siezed nipples undone almost every time without drama. If it's still stiff then tap the top of the nipple whilst applying gentle force with the spanner.
Pads and discs are an easy job on an XJ. Make sure you buy good quality replacements - cheapies are OK to start with but often fail early as the discs tend to warp. Often more of a problem with an automatic as people tend to hold them on the brakes when stationary which causes the disc to retain heat unevenly.
I'll sympathise with your bills. I've spent well north of £2000 (Mrs JS has detailed records
) on mine and nothing serious has gone wrong. It's just been the usual littany of gearbox oil changes, spark plugs, secondary timing tensioners, lots of servicing, steering column replacement, discs, pads, tyres, 4 wheel alignment, rear shocks, new battery, bulbs, new chromatic mirror, diagnostics, throttle re set and alloy wheel refurb to name just some.
By contast the diseasiel van I'm inflicted with for day to day driving has cost virtually nothing apart from servicing over a similar time and at a much higher mileage too.
Pads are actually pushed free from the disc by the rotational force of the disc and a tiny amount of permissable disc run out when you release the brake pedal. If the piston is slightly binding in the caliper due to either a dust seal failure allowing the exposed part piston to corrode, contaminated brake fluid or swollen seals inside the caliper then the pads won't always won't get pushed free of the disc.
If the fluid is more than two years old it's worth changing to protect and preserve the calipers master cylinder and ABS module, even if its not causing calipers to stick yet.
Clean off all the bleed nipples with a wire brush, give them a shot of WD 40 and wait 10 mins. Then give the top of each one a smart tap with a hammer. Use the correct size (11mm IIRC) fitting single hex ring spanner and you'll get siezed nipples undone almost every time without drama. If it's still stiff then tap the top of the nipple whilst applying gentle force with the spanner.
Pads and discs are an easy job on an XJ. Make sure you buy good quality replacements - cheapies are OK to start with but often fail early as the discs tend to warp. Often more of a problem with an automatic as people tend to hold them on the brakes when stationary which causes the disc to retain heat unevenly.
I'll sympathise with your bills. I've spent well north of £2000 (Mrs JS has detailed records
) on mine and nothing serious has gone wrong. It's just been the usual littany of gearbox oil changes, spark plugs, secondary timing tensioners, lots of servicing, steering column replacement, discs, pads, tyres, 4 wheel alignment, rear shocks, new battery, bulbs, new chromatic mirror, diagnostics, throttle re set and alloy wheel refurb to name just some. By contast the diseasiel van I'm inflicted with for day to day driving has cost virtually nothing apart from servicing over a similar time and at a much higher mileage too.
To be honest I'm not sure I'd recommend any of the ones I have used in Surrey/Sussex. Jagtech at Oving did my timing chain tensioners very well and for a very fair price but failed to replace the head gaskets at the same time and when immediately after I found there was a problem I had to fork out another £500 with them to do the head gasket too.
The LOdsworth Garage - took the car in for a knocking from rear drivers side wheel. They did £700 of work changing bushes and ARB drop links only for me to pick the car up after they had closed and the knocking was still there.
So I took the car to Cocking Garage who found play in a rear bush, changed it, MOT'd it and also did a few other odds and sods such as 2 new tyres etc. Now to be fair even as a non-Jag indie they seemed the most professional and did sort my problems out.
The only Jag specialist I have been seriously impressed with is CWM Motors Coventry. They're bloody brilliant, sort things other garages can't, charge very modestly and are without question where I'd go if it wasn't a 200 mile drive each way.... and even at that distance I have been tempted....
So my Jag experience so far, not good, and the bills even from the Jag indie's certainly make my eyes water. As an example somebody damaged my electric wing mirror. Lodsworth sourced a second hand one for £75, plus £10 carriage, plus half hour labout, plus VAT and another half hour road test to identify juddering under braking. All in £170 ish including VAT gone in the blink of an eye. To be fair of course half of that is parts but you could service the TVR for £250, or put two new tyres on it - just seemed much cheaper to run to me. Biggest bill ever on the TVR about £800, biggest on Jag £1600 plus the further £500 for head gasket replacement. It's like running a bloody Ferrari for bills.... And from talking to the indies my experience isn't unusual, they're knee deep in people with broken timing chains needing £5000 recon engines, or gearboxes needing £2000 replacement PLUS LABOUR.
Jag running costs seem to me to be absolutely terrifying and as for people taking the piss cos TVR's are unreliable they've got to be joking. Total running costs for the Griff in three years beyond servicing and oil - just an hour labour to sort out a fuel pump relay elec problem, apart from that zippo - never broke down, never stranded me in ten years and it's a 1992 TVR GRiffith with nearly 70 000 miles on it. Total running costs over 10 years probably about equal the cost of running an XJ8 FOR ONE YEAR!!!!
So anyone on the look out for bargain barge - you have been warned...
Saxon
The LOdsworth Garage - took the car in for a knocking from rear drivers side wheel. They did £700 of work changing bushes and ARB drop links only for me to pick the car up after they had closed and the knocking was still there.
So I took the car to Cocking Garage who found play in a rear bush, changed it, MOT'd it and also did a few other odds and sods such as 2 new tyres etc. Now to be fair even as a non-Jag indie they seemed the most professional and did sort my problems out.
The only Jag specialist I have been seriously impressed with is CWM Motors Coventry. They're bloody brilliant, sort things other garages can't, charge very modestly and are without question where I'd go if it wasn't a 200 mile drive each way.... and even at that distance I have been tempted....
So my Jag experience so far, not good, and the bills even from the Jag indie's certainly make my eyes water. As an example somebody damaged my electric wing mirror. Lodsworth sourced a second hand one for £75, plus £10 carriage, plus half hour labout, plus VAT and another half hour road test to identify juddering under braking. All in £170 ish including VAT gone in the blink of an eye. To be fair of course half of that is parts but you could service the TVR for £250, or put two new tyres on it - just seemed much cheaper to run to me. Biggest bill ever on the TVR about £800, biggest on Jag £1600 plus the further £500 for head gasket replacement. It's like running a bloody Ferrari for bills.... And from talking to the indies my experience isn't unusual, they're knee deep in people with broken timing chains needing £5000 recon engines, or gearboxes needing £2000 replacement PLUS LABOUR.
Jag running costs seem to me to be absolutely terrifying and as for people taking the piss cos TVR's are unreliable they've got to be joking. Total running costs for the Griff in three years beyond servicing and oil - just an hour labour to sort out a fuel pump relay elec problem, apart from that zippo - never broke down, never stranded me in ten years and it's a 1992 TVR GRiffith with nearly 70 000 miles on it. Total running costs over 10 years probably about equal the cost of running an XJ8 FOR ONE YEAR!!!!
So anyone on the look out for bargain barge - you have been warned...
Saxon
The Leaper said:
I live in Surrey too, thinking about an indie for later use. Can you recommend one? Which one do you use?
saxon said:
To be honest I'm not sure I'd recommend any of the ones I have used in Surrey/Sussex.
Not in Surrey but only just over the border, I use Tom at TLJaguar in Eversley 0118-973-7779
Top man, knows his Jaguars, Classics as well as the Moderns, well worth contacting him
Gassing Station | Jaguar | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff