Binding brake and warranty

Gilbretto

Gilbretto

Gilbretto

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Joined
24 Nov 2007
Posts
888
Location
Leeds
Hello

I bought my Celica GT 3 weeks a go with a 1 month used car warranty from the dealer.

I took my car to the local garage to check the car over to see if anything was knackered.

It turns out that the car is spot on except that one of the front breaks is binding. He said that because of this the break is far more worn that its opposite.

Now, i dont know what causes brakes to bind. Is it something that would happen as and when the brake was last changed? Or can it develop for no particular reason?

The reason i ask, is that i assume they will try to tell me that it happened since i got the car, and is not covered by the warranty. I think it may well have been a problem before i got the car.

Because mechanics obviously dont want to do any warranty work for free, i'm looking for a way to prove that it was a problem before i got the car.

As i said, i really dont know about these things so if you could fill me in i would be very thankful.

Cheers,

Gil.
 
Binding brakes normally take a while to occur (more than likely more than 3 weeks). They usually occur when water get's access to either the caliper sliding pin, or the caliper piston, causing rust so the piston/sliding pin seizes and causes the brake to be on constantly. Obviously this will inevitably lead to the pads and discs on the side that's binding, wearing down quicker. Then since this has happened, the car will sometimes pull under braking.

Obviously try your hardest to argue that this won't have happened in the 3 weeks you've had the car, but if you can't it's not exactly the worst thing to have ever happened. You can free the caliper pins/pistons on your own, but if the mechanic said that your brakes have worn down on one side, it means you'll have to get new pads on both sides, and possibly new discs depending on how bad the discs are.
 
If it's binding the likelyhood of freeing it off is slim, or at least having a fully functional piston is. If the pins are seizing, that might not be so bad, but if it's the piston you're probably better off getting a new/refurbed pair or calipers TBH, as the surface will likely be badly pitted on the piston and also within the caliper itself.

This happened to me (seized piston) and no amount of hammering would shift it - it was utterly knackered.
 
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