Please, what is wrong with my brakes?????

[nhudson1]

I keep having a reoccurring issue with my front disc brakes. I’m having to replace them around every 10k. The car spends 90% of its life in a straight line on the motorway and I don’t hammer the brakes, sit on the pedal in traffic and there's no noticeable drag or loss of fuel economy etc.

The outer surface has a couple of slight raised marks in the shape of the pads, but the inside looks like its been through hell and back... and its the same on BOTH.

I’ve had them replaced 3x at 3x different places now and they keep doing the same thing, just at differing standards...

The current discs/pad combo are marked as Brembo, so assume they are good quality. If there was hub run out or sticking callipers the garages would have picked up on them.

I’ve only had this issue since fraud(ford) had the box off to replace the clutch etc at 70k... previous to this, NO issues.

[Drive it fix it repeat]

Are they sticking? Can you hear a grinding type noise when going along slowly? Geg a jack and lift one of the front corners and see if the wheel will spin freely. Shouldn't be any drag. Are the inside and outside pads wearing evenly or inside getting killed while the outside still has plenty of meat, lots of calipers use little metal sliders to transfer the clamping force from the piston to inside and outside pad. These can get corroded and dont move freely therefore more pressure is exerted on the inside pad.

[E-bmw]

Shame you didn't also include a pic of the inside surface also.

The wear/marking pattern you suggest for the outer surface is quite normal if the car is parked up in the rain as the surface corrosion that you don't even notice will leave "pad shaped" marks deeper than the corrosion itself due to the pad/disc interface holding water & supporting corrosion, this is nothing to worry about.

The difference between the inner & outer surfaces is also quite simple to explain.

The piston sliders are either seized/partially seized/stiff/sticky depending on what you want to call it.

Just because the brakes have been worked on doesn't unfortunately mean that this would have been seen/dealt with.

[stevieturbo]

nhudson1 said:

I keep having a reoccurring issue with my front disc brakes. I’m having to replace them around every 10k. The car spends 90% of its life in a straight line on the motorway and I don’t hammer the brakes, sit on the pedal in traffic and there's no noticeable drag or loss of fuel economy etc.

The outer surface has a couple of slight raised marks in the shape of the pads, but the inside looks like its been through hell and back... and its the same on BOTH.

I’ve had them replaced 3x at 3x different places now and they keep doing the same thing, just at differing standards...

The current discs/pad combo are marked as Brembo, so assume they are good quality. If there was hub run out or sticking callipers the garages would have picked up on them.

I’ve only had this issue since fraud(ford) had the box off to replace the clutch etc at 70k... previous to this, NO issues.

So you're replacing discs purely because you do not like the look of them ?

The surface you've pictured, whilst there is some odd colouration...looks perfectly fine.

Is there any CV grease or anything finding its way onto the disc ?

And why would you assume any garage would measure runout ? You havent mentioned a strange feeling or a bumpy pedal ?
And yes they should detect a sticky caliper etc...."should" doesnt mean they will. But you don't seem to be reporting any symptoms of a sticky caliper ?

[Chris32345]

E-bmw said:

Shame you didn't also include a pic of the inside surface also.

The wear/marking pattern you suggest for the outer surface is quite normal if the car is parked up in the rain as the surface corrosion that you don't even notice will leave "pad shaped" marks deeper than the corrosion itself due to the pad/disc interface holding water & supporting corrosion, this is nothing to worry about.

The difference between the inner & outer surfaces is also quite simple to explain.

The piston sliders are either seized/partially seized/stiff/sticky depending on what you want to call it.

Just because the brakes have been worked on doesn't unfortunately mean that this would have been seen/dealt with.

That is the inner surface

[Elliot2000]

Christ - where to begin. How would ford, or the classic ‘fraud’ removing gearbox have any impact on the discs?
Brembo discs and pads these days = euro car parts crap licences with brembos name
As someone has said- leaking cv joints?
Use anything in particular to clean the wheels? Strong acids?
Why would discolouration or corrosion mean any garage would look at run out?

[poppopbangbang]

Elliot2000 said:

Christ - where to begin. How would ford, or the classic ‘fraud’ removing gearbox have any impact on the discs?

Driveshaft or more specifically outer CV removed to allow the shaft to be removed for clearance to remove the gearbox, on reassembly failure to torque hub nut to spec which in turn allows beyond tolerance movement in the wheel bearing leading to excessive deflection of the disc (and hub assembly) allowing the inner face of the disc to contact the inner pad when the wheel is loaded i.e. car on floor.

[E-bmw]

Chris32345 said:

E-bmw said:

Shame you didn't also include a pic of the inside surface also.

The wear/marking pattern you suggest for the outer surface is quite normal if the car is parked up in the rain as the surface corrosion that you don't even notice will leave "pad shaped" marks deeper than the corrosion itself due to the pad/disc interface holding water & supporting corrosion, this is nothing to worry about.

The difference between the inner & outer surfaces is also quite simple to explain.

The piston sliders are either seized/partially seized/stiff/sticky depending on what you want to call it.

Just because the brakes have been worked on doesn't unfortunately mean that this would have been seen/dealt with.

That is the inner surface

Well noticed, by the description of the surface I didn't actually look close enough.

I have seen MUCH worse.

[Dave Brand]

nhudson1 said:

The car spends 90% of its life in a straight line on the motorway and I don’t hammer the brakes,

That could be your problem!

The picture you posted looks to me like a perfectly good disc that's never done any hard work.

[Elliot2000]

poppopbangbang said:

Driveshaft or more specifically outer CV removed to allow the shaft to be removed for clearance to remove the gearbox, on reassembly failure to torque hub nut to spec which in turn allows beyond tolerance movement in the wheel bearing leading to excessive deflection of the disc (and hub assembly) allowing the inner face of the disc to contact the inner pad when the wheel is loaded i.e. car on floor.

For the issue the op has described wouldn’t be caused by what you suggested. But, you are right in saying they could have removed the shaft and left it loose - but if the bearing was loose it would cause the brakes to not work as the gap created from the movement in the disc pushing the pads backwards - this gap would need to be removed by pumping the brakes - that’s not what the op is talking about.

But I suppose if they damaged the cv boot whilst doing the gearbox - then this could be the cause with the cv grease leaking onto the disc inner surface, but surely one of the garages would have reported this when replacing the brakes

[nhudson1]

The passenger side hub bearing collapsed driving back from ford. They discounted the fitting of a new one as a "good will gesture"... I couldn't prove it was their fault, but since they had the box out Ive had issues with the brakes rubbing and a significant wobble under braking - the 70k before, NO issues.

I also had to have the drivers side drive shaft replaced as it was stretched(?) and knocking a few weeks later.

This is the third set of Pads AND Discs Ive had fitted I would hope professionally by a decent independent garage. This last replacement has been the best and has given me no cause for concern, but I'm now hearing (NOT feeling) a "Womm Womm Womm" noise when braking. No judder, no vibrations.

So I thought I'd just check the brakes and thought I'd ask opinions from people who know a heck of a lot more than me (The replies prove this).

The rear drums and shoes are fine, still on the originals and on 102k miles.

It's also had its MOT at Ford at the beginning of March, so I hoped they might have said something.

The CV boots are intact and I don't use anything other than normal car shampoo when/if I ever clean the car.

[nhudson1]

Any other ideas?

Close to leaving a set of matches on the passenger seat and windows open.

[stevieturbo]

Find a garage who are not retards.