Help please, brake trouble.

[anonymous-user]

Strange one this...

Day before I go away on holiday, I drive to my parents and back.

80 mile round trip, little bit of urban at each end, but mostly 60mph A Road. Done it a thousand times.

Nothing wrong with my car whatsoever, drives perfectly.

Get home, park it up on the drive, then go on holiday.

Get back a week later, next day set off to work in it and notice that the brakes feel 'shuddery' which is odd. If it has been standing a few days they usually grate lightly for the first few stops until the surface rust is cleaned off but never shudder.

I then note they are really bad. Even in 20mph traffic under light braking the pedal bumps up and down under my foot as the discs turn and the steering wheel shakes.

At 30-60mph it's really bad with quite severe vibration through the steering, pedal and even the floor when you apply braking pressure!

Tried a few big slow downs from 60mph to see if giving the discs a good clean would help but no... Just more big vibrations!

Any ideas what on earth has caused this? It's never happened before!

Edited to add: I naturally await the usual PH reply of "No such thing as a warped brake disc"

Edited by NinjaPower on Thursday 15th March 16:05

[juliethotel]

does it feel like the abs is wrongly kicking in? what car is it?

[anonymous-user]

No it's not the ABS, I know this because due to a 2 year long fault, my old Mk4 Golf TDI 130 used to activate the ABS all the time whilst you braked gently in the dry at 10-30mph so I know what that feels like!

It's my work Astravan 2.0DTi Sport, so basically a mk4 Astra 2.0DTi.

[TheEnd]

Sticking caliper?

[davepoth]

It does sound an awful lot like a warped disc to me too.

[Captain Muppet]

Jack it up one corner at a time and spin the wheel by hand. The wheel that makes a "thunk" noise every time you spin it has a problem. Look at the brake disc on that wheel, inspect the pads, and you should see what is wrong.