Are these car brakes worn?

[Dave Baker]

They're about half worn. Maybe 15,000 miles left depending on the vehicle. Certainly no need to change them for another year or more.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Oh there is somewhere deep withing the MOT, but, like tyres, that's a legal minimum. Its not a binary choice between safe and unsafe.

If you want to hit a sheet of water across a motorway at 60mph on 1.5mm tread be my guest. But let me know so I can be somewhere else.

OTOH on brand new M&S tyres, it's nothing at all.

[Adrian]

The Natural Philosopher gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I've never found thin pads to contribute to fade. Thin discs, definitely. But never thin pads. Very little heat dissipation is done by the edges of the friction material on the pad.

[Adrian]

The Natural Philosopher gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

A reason for rejection, yes, but not a legal minimum.

but, like tyres, that's a legal minimum.

ITYM "unlike tyres, that's not a legal minimum". You get a roadside MOT, and - so long as the brakes are effective - you'll have no problems. But you'll get 3pts for each

[Mentalguy2k8]

I agree, usually they give you back someone else's "down to the metal" pads to prove how bad they were, then fit yours into someone else's car and charge *them* full price for new ones.

Strange to give you back your perfectly good pads, but I expect if you take the matter further, he'll say that the customer *insisted* on having them replaced despite the mechanic telling him that they were fine... and he even gave the customer his old ones back to prove it.

[Ste]

No I wasn't thinking of tyres, but anyway, see reason for rejection (f):

bear in mind that, with much less than 1.5mm of pad left, the key of the backing plate would be cutting into the discs, and would render the vehicle dangerous to use even if there wasn't a specific check point on the MOT.

[The Natural Philosopher]

There is a reasonable amount of thermal mass in a 4 pot set of discs.

[Adrian]

Ste gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I don't think I've ever seen a pad where the backing can touch the disk until there's no material at all left.

[Clive George]

Indeed - in the ones I remember the backing plate has holes where the pad material keys into, rather than the other way round.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "John Whitworth" saying something like:

I'd not be surprised if what they'd done was deliberately make it like that, to extract more money.

As they should have.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Me neither, ..there is no 'key' the pads are simply bonded to the backplates.

[Jo]

Thanks, here's another picture of them:

I am sooo angry. Cheating students must call for the lowest sort of scum.

Jo

[Adrian]

Jo gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

material appears to be starting to separate from the back plate, and some of the edges?

I take back my earlier comments. If t'were me, they'd be heading binwards.

Did he even know you were a student? Do you think students should be treated differently to anybody else?

[AlanG]

I dug it up as an example because she was uneducated in these matters.

Yes. I would have changed them

I once sat with a spark eroder for 16 hours getting hardened steel studs out of an aluminium honda cylinder head. Not nice :(

[John Whitworth]

Must admit, they do look very very badly worn. Even with a low amount of pad left, if things were all well, I'd expect a pretty smooth top surface. There seems to be a lot of rust dust present.

[Fredxx]

Totally agree. Pad material is chosen not to coduct heat to the caliper. The material should be uniform throughout the pad. The heat is designed to be dissipated entirely in the disk.

[Jo]

I wasn't born yesterday!! He seemed dodgy so I asked for them back with the intention of checking with you guys. None of my housemates know anything about brake pads!

Jo

[Reg]

I wouldn't be happy driving a car with pads that worn.

[Jo]

I know they used a vise, took a hammer and a 0.5m lever of some sort to it to separate two parts into the four in the photograph. So some of the wear you see may have been caused by them.

They didn't allow me on the garage work floor as well, so I couldn't see what they were doing.

Yes he did know I was a student, because I said "I'm a skint student, can you please give me a discount?" and he said "If you pay cash with no receipt we can take the VAT off".

I think fleecing anyone is despicable but fleecing a hard up person is more so!!

Jo

[Reg]

I hope you don't come anywhere near my business with your paranoid insinuations. It looks like the guy has done a good job. It is standard practise to use a lever to seperate the pads and push the pistons back into the cylinders. You are also *not* insured to be in their workshop near dangerous equipment.