Has been contacted by Company concerned

"who wish him to have a discussion with the branch concerned and the Area manager to resolve any issues"

Copy of reply.

I am very sorry to hear about the problems you have experienced at our ******** Depot.

Reply to email...

I have passed your details on to the Centre and Regional Manager to investigate and make contact with you. They will work together and contact you regarding your complaint.

Friend is fuming

Standard with some dealers I suspect. I'd a Honda CRV that, at 12,500 miles, I was told would need pads soon. I did 75,000 miles on those pads and even then they weren't worn out.

Why on earth do they think he would be interested in letting them inspect his car?

Why on earth do they think he would be interested in letting them inspect his car?

We have been discussing this today, and he has refused, saying they are welcome to inspect the car at the main dealers.

The main dealer has said that there will be a charge for a second inspection, there should have been for the 1st, but waived as a courtesy, and he has indicated to Fastfitco that they will be expected to pay for this.

Edited by oldroverboy. on 19/09/2018 at 20:34

1996 Golf TDi. At the 3rd service (30,000 miles) the dealer told us the front brake pads required changing. I said I would sort, checked that weekend, they we less than 1/2 worn, not happy. 40,000 miles, same again but I was able to assure him that in truth they were OK since I had checked before the service. 50,000 miles they were still fine but after the service he told us we were in imminent danger of loosing brakes, simply ignored him. At 60,000 they made no mention but shortly after that service I did change them since its nicer to do the work in Summer than on a wet drive. They still had life, probably gone to 70,000 safely but decided I had had good value form them.

Dealer has changed hands twice since, no idea if they still try and pull the same tricks.

Took Micra in for service and MOT. Rang me at 0930 to say car had passed MOT and would be ready to collect as arranged. After lunch they rang again to tell me the rear tyres were bald and needed replacing. I said to the person on the phone that I was surprised since it had passed its MOT earlier in the morning at their own workshop, the line went silent. When I went to collect the car I asked to speak to the service manager and made sure there was a nice queue behind me. I told him what had happened and he looked embarrassed and went away. He came back with the excuse that the person that had rung after lunch had given me the wrong message, what he should have said was the tyres would need replacing before the next service.

The words lying and bar-steward fitted him perfectly.

Edited by skidpan on 20/09/2018 at 18:09

Front brake pads should last roughly 50,000 depending how you drive. With around 10mm of useable thickness, that's around 5000m per millimetre. So if you are an average driver (8000m per annum), if the most worn is at least as thick as the backplate (which is about 4mm thick), they should last another couple of years before you are told to change them (MoT requirement is at least 1.5mm), unless the caliper mechanism is sticky and it's wearing faster than it should (see gb's excellent advice on brake maintenance on the 'worn brakepads' thread). And, as has been discussed in that thread, you will not have lost much braking power even when the the first metallic scraping sound indicates that one of them has worn away completely.

Too early brake pad and disc replacement is one of the major sources of income (short and long-term) for unscrupulous garages. Long term, because the caliper piston never gets to travel anywhere near its full service length, its distal unused cylinder wall is more prone to corrosion and thus early caliper failure (which I have never experienced even on our high mileage cars).

All the pads I have looked at have a channel cut in the centre, roughly to the depth required by the MoT minimum. I guess it helps to disperse dust as it forms.

It helps clear the dust and it also stops the gasses formed when you brake buiding up and reducing efficiency. That is why race cars have slots and holes in the disc.

I don't think pads are intended to be worn down to the backplate,.

They are certainly not. The backplate offers zero retardation and can destroy a disc in a very short time. Then its new discs and pads instead of just new pads.

But lets just consider one other thing. The thread created by JohnF on the subject of vbrakes was deleted for several reasons and now JohnF has started discussing brakes on the tyre thread. Why has he done this, probably instead of apologising to Avant of the thread Avant started.

Edited by skidpan on 21/09/2018 at 17:23

Can we please please please stop "attacking" each other, and Please Please please John-F, stop baiting people.

It is no longer funny/amusing.