40k miles, new discs and pads?

[Finglonga]

Hill & Swift, Stone, Staffordshire, credit where it's due.

They have been very good and honest there, even my old man uses them now even though he used to work as Lloyds as was years ago.

As for disc wear it depends on the driving style/ The wifes 1Series were replaced at 50k I queried it as they should last longer but she had worn a huge lip on them with her heavy foot.

 

[Nasher]

My Fiesta ST needed new disks and pads all round at just over 40k miles. That was them worn ALL the way down lol

But the car uses brake/torque vectoring which is going to wear them down quicker I suppose.

 

[Orionaut]

As for disc wear it depends on the driving style/ The wifes 1Series were replaced at 50k I queried it as they should last longer but she had worn a huge lip on them with her heavy foot.

Back in the 70's when Disks were first coming into general use, Disks would last forever. (Pads would pretty well last forever too)

But that was when pads were still made of Asbestos.

It is one of the constants of life that whenever you see "Cleaner, Greener, Better from an H&S POV" and whatever on the box, You know the new product is simply not going to be as good at the job as the older product.

(See also "Lead free Solder" An abomination of the Devil if ever there was one! )

 

[Nasher]

And H&S approved water-based car paint, that you can almost rub off with your fingernail

 

[dalin80]

not replacing these items yourself is like letting another man service your wife.

Well it's starting to becoming far less simple then it used to be, all in a drive to make people go to the dealers I expect. Want to change rear brakes? Fine just make sure you have the diagnostics that can wind back the electric handbrake, oh and a trickle charger with a flash code setting as if the power drops below 12.2v during the process you could kill the brake control module. Replaced the front brakes but the warning light is still on? You will need to reset the wear percentage in the brake module and if that doesn't work it means the 'OEM' sensor wire your factors sent has the wrong resistance and you will need to replace it with a genuine one.

I have been looking for a new car for about 3 years now but I keep remembering all the nonsense built into new cars and suddenly my 96 Toyota seems quite a good choice again.

 

[Holst1981]

I just ask to inspect the old disks after the job is done.

Usually say something along the lines of
"will you please keep the old disks so I can check them or do you think I'll get another few months out of them? "
If they then go back on the change I'll not use that garage again.

My current garage know I'm not a fool and don't even try.
Did have to try a few places before I found somebody I trust.

If you don't trust them don't use them.

 

[Nasher]

Trying to sell people new disks and tyres when theres months left in them seems to be standard practise now, especially from dealers :/

 

[mushtafa]

Brake discs don't last as long as they used to. Brake pads are very abrasive these days, so they wear the discs quicker.

They may have been pitted/corroded instead of worn.

 

[dalin80]

Trying to sell people new disks and tyres when theres months left in them seems to be standard practise now, especially from dealers :/

It's a bit difficult at times, especially with brakes that have minimum safe thickness measurements which don't really match with what your eyes are telling you and tyres wear out very quickly now, new sets on the big pointless 4x4's can barely last 10,000.

The golden rule of recommendations for replacement is 'will this last safely until the next service'? As many cars now have 15/20k service intervals it's often a case of 'I should advise this.'

Then people get angry over two things things, you have the 'Don't give me that BS! There's months left in them!' crowd and 'Why didn't you phone me to get them changed, you have wasted my time just to get me to come back in again!' lot.

The occasional, 'I had my last car for 100,000miles and it never need a new 'x'!'. pops up, yeah good for your old car mate but bad luck your new one does.

 

[Mickey]

Ignore your dealer and actually check. My BMW Mottard dealer said I had 1,000 miles left on my pads at most.

Another Euro trip and 5,000 miles later they are still not at the BMW recommended minimum level. Con artists.

It's a common con by dealers, most people aren't going to argue when they're told their brakes are dangerously low.

My local Jag dealer have tried twice in the past to con me in to having brakes replaced when they were fine. One time, the service desk guy actually said "Well the good news is that it's passed the MOT with no advisories, but we've done our health check and your rear discs and pads are dangerously low, you really should have them done before driving the car away!". He didn't like it when I pointed out how ridiculous what he'd said was, they were still only half worn when I sold the car 7k miles later.

 

[theone8181]

Bare in mind that mots now check the inside fave of the discs so it could be that that it's failed on. Fwiw in my 911 it's considered very good to get 3 years out of discs.

 

[mushtafa]

Discs will only fail the MOT if they are pitted, worn, and scored enough to weaken it. In the real world, they will never be bad enough to fail.

Everyone drives differently. We had van drivers who need discs every pad change because they must brake very late/heavy. We also have old girls who don't drive above 30, their brakes last forever.

At the end of the day, you've questioned your mechanic/garage. You need to go and see them and have a chat. They will explain why they needed changing. Most garages keep old parts for 7 days in case the customer wants to see them. (We do anyway).

If you're still not happy, it's time to find a mechanic/garage you trust.

 

[DXP55]

I have never been impressed with the brakes on my 2010 Focus - just didn't seem to have the power my old Mazda Xedos had where I just pressed pedal and any more pressure you could feel car trying to stand on it's nose.

I got in habit of hitting brakes hard when leaving home to get some heat in them and they were a lot better.

Changed fronts out at around 40k with grooved discs and Ferodo pads and it is a lot better but still not stand on it's nose brakes.

 

[dalin80]

Changed fronts out at around 40k with grooved discs and Ferodo pads and it is a lot better but still not stand on it's nose brakes.

Try drilled discs on your next change, from the gumpf we get sent by brake manufacturers drilled offer the sweat-spot for hard road use, bit more surface area then grooved by still good for dissipating, moistures, vapours and gas build up. Also have you had a brake fluid change?

 

[Liquidfox]

The Mk2 Focus ST generally goes through front pads at the same rate it goes through disks, the disks come with 25mm on them and minimum thickness is only 23mm. It means you only need a 1mm lip either side and they're done. I imagine the Mk3 has got similarly small tolerances?

 

[Nasher]

Hmm the brakes my MK2 lasted over 50k miles. They may not last that long on the mk3 though due to brake vectoring like I mentioned earlier. Luckily the OEM ones are not all that expensive and pretty decent, they are made by Ferodo I think.

 

[233]

mk5 Mondeo here thats driven very hard changed the front pads at 30k rear pads are only half worn at 50k and discs look like new

 

[Uriel]

Had my front discs replaced at around 65k. That was because they were getting thin.

Rears are due for replacement soon. They're getting corroded, probably because I don't stomp on them enough. The conditions's bad enough that it's probably worth replacing them once the pads are worn out.

Apparently it's all because asbestos is banned as a pad material these days. It used to have very good wear properties, so the vast majority of wear was on the pads. With newer compounds the discs take some of the hit.

 

[Jamesyboyjim]

You have no idea how the car was previously driven, the old owner might have been really hard on the brakes. My missus has a 12 plate Focus diesel too and that has done 64,000 odd miles, to our knowledge, still on its original pads with a good 40% or so remaining (according to its last service)

Does her model have that driver rating system on it? (hers is a titanium) Probably wouldn't pay too much attention to it but her car does rate her 5 out of 5, see what your missus' score is

 

[Scania]

You have no idea how the car was previously driven, the old owner might have been really hard on the brakes. My missus has a 12 plate Focus diesel too and that has done 64,000 odd miles, to our knowledge, still on its original pads with a good 40% or so remaining (according to its last service)

Does her model have that driver rating system on it? (hers is a titanium) Probably wouldn't pay too much attention to it but her car does rate her 5 out of 5, see what your missus' score is

The first owner only did 5k in 6 months but maybe drove it like a maniac, I don't know TBH, my other half certainly doesn't drive it hard and predominantly in and around town rather than long high speed journeys.

Not sure about the driver rating thing, it's got an OBC and park assistant (which is spooky - parks itself!) but not sure if you can discern if it's got it from this photo....



I did the school run in it this morning and noticed the brakes seem much more responsive, you barely have to touch the pedal to scrub off speed, didn't try any hard braking though - I'll let them bed in for a few hundred miles.

Incidentally a few Scanias at work have Driver rating fitted, variable results when you check it, sometimes up in the 90% region although I've seen as low as 4%!!!