I am sure this will have been done elsewhere but I suspect this will be quicker:-)
General experience of vehicle testers and minimum residual thickness of brake discs. My wife's mk9 Ford Fiesta has a minimum thickness figure of 21mm cast to the outer shaft. Careful measurement with my trusty imperial micrometer gave averages of
0.843 and 0.837 which I reckon to be 21.41mm and 21.26mm.The pads have a bit of life left so my intention is to argue a threatened fail with the tester.
Any thoughts?
There's still a bit of flexibility and subjectivity in MOT testing. You want the kind of tester who will replace a failed bulb during the test and not demand a re-test. Fortunately I found one like that and he's still in business about twenty years later.
I've used a number (depending upon availability when required) and found that most are reasonable - advisories for grey areas that might or might not be a failure and failures for those things that clearly are.
Mots also have a brake efficiency test.
This might assist:
The disc pads will fail if (i) worn down to wear indicator (ii) worn below 1.5mm
If there is a concern over the discs, I would tell the tester that you are aware the discs are worn but you've measured them with a vernier or caliper and can confirm they are within the manufacturer's wear limit.
TBH I have never had a vehicle due to the condition of the discs though I have had a few advisories.
MOT standards are well below what I would consider 'safe driving' . Don't be such a skinflint. Replace the lot.
How easy is it to replace a disk, diy?
Generally yes, if you dont mind squatting in the drive.
They are generally held on by the wheel nuts, so get loose when you pull the wheel and nuts
You need to pull the calipers off as well which is RUST territory on the bolts and there may be a retaining screw on the disks as well. which will almost certainly need an impact driver of the hammer on kind to get loose.
Then to replace the pads you need to push the cylinders apart in the calipers. It its a sliding caliper re-greasing the slide pins is a must.
For an amateur about an hour per wheel. For a shop with a lift and ratchet impacts etc probably all 4 in an hour. Id expect a total job done by a shop to be less than £150. Which is a small price to pay to get back 'as new' braking performance, It doesn't matter how thick the disks are for normal low speed driving - what matters is how scored and grooved they are.
And the parts are all high volume, in stock and cheap.
The last I did was on a Fiesta and it was less that a couple of hours job to do the fronts, but it was old really crappy. I did the pads at the same time. Plenty of videos on YouTube:-
Dave
If you have never done it before also use your mobile phone to take photos as you dismantle, especially of any clips you remove. This will give you the clues for re-assembly when its not 100% intuitive how they fit back in.
It's a shopping trolley!
My Passat does any real travelling.
The intention has been to replace it with a battery job but the removal of incentives and the steep price rises rather off putting.
>
It looks doable on U tube. I particularly liked using a G cramp to compress the calliper piston:-)
+1
Remember car repair is simply two things. Diagnosing what is broken, and finding out how the f*ck to remove the rusty bolts holding it in place and how much else you have to remove to get to it.
Plus of course knowing how to apply the right amount of torque when putting it back together.
Would it not be cheaper to do them now as in a while the prices must be higher due to inflation. Brian
Second hand EV prices are coming down. Always worth having a shufty on Autotrader.
Eg.
Tim
In message <uc1rgs$2bbb6$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, Brian Gaff snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com writes
The plan is to replace the vehicle with something electric. We have family in North London so ULEZ is an issue.
The vehicle is overdue for a brake fluid change ( other than Ford, who would market a vehicle needing a 2 year garage job) not d-i-y because of the ABS controls.
Having studied the rust on the calliper holding bolts, I am nervous of taking on the job anyway.
>
Battery jobs have come down a lot on the used market recently - after all the supply chain issues have sorted themselves out, it looks like prices reverted to what would be expected of a car of that age.
If you're replacing the Passat, a <2yo MG5 is 13.4k, for example:
Theo
Now *that's* a shopping trolley. About as crashworthy too.
They're a fair option if you don't need a lot of range. Because there's only an air cooled battery, they suffer more from battery degradation than any other make, especially ones that have seen a lot of rapid charging. But that means the examples with ~50 miles of range can be picked up cheap, and shopping trollies or daily commuter cars often don't need much range, so...
Also worth looking at Zoes (basically a Clio EV) - many of them are battery leased but the lease can be bought out for about 1-2k. The Zoe has proper liquid battery cooling so should last longer.
Theo
That is one trick.
There are others. ISTR using mole grips, or the old pads and a pry bar.
This tool
And a set of pads and discs is, if you go for 3rd party aftermarket, cheap as chips.
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