Routine maintenance and why you should......

[lez]

Not a bongo, but could easily be, as its an 'act of god' type fault...



This is a picture of a brakepad taken from a vehicle (mine!) after 3 months of hard work (yes I do check things that often!)

The car it was in was driving very normally, and under (often) hard braking would lock a front wheel, and the abs would work just fine, it was always 50/50 etc no dominant wheel.

The brakes felt just fine, no pulling, nothing, no odd noise, in fact the pad would still be in the car now if it had not been found.....

Wheel was removed to allow some more waterproofing of the wheel arch, its been a wet winter etc, and I also decided to change the front flexi hoses as I got some new ones at a good price, this resulted in having to remove the pads to screw back the piston for bleeding.

pad was removed and.........
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down a bit....
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It looks like a stone had fitted itself between the top 'ear' of the pad and the slide it runs in, the force of the piston when braking bending the pad and causing separation of the actual pad material.

Not something you want.......

So, all you lazy puttng it off till tomorro (oh hang on thats me with decorating) people take heed, check the pads, check your tyres, check your fluids.....

This routine check looks like it could have been a lifesaver, either for poor old me driving, or whoever was in front of it.

[Veg_Ian]

Bloody hell ! Lucky you (or unlucky depending upon the way you look at it). I've seen pads break up before but nothing as drastic as that. I'm amazed there wasn't some noise or depreciation in braking performance as a result of the bent pad base.

[Naughtydog]

maybe you shoul consider contacting the manufactuer of the brake pad, it could be a RECALL jobby, its not uncommon for faults in production, and you might save a few extra lives.

i had simalar experience with helicopter rotor brakepads, one ended up in a simalar condition, that turned out to be a production problem and a recall was ordered of all brake pads made between XX dates.

worth a phone call?

[Naughtydog]

P.s. has you other half been checking youre life insurance policy alot recently ?

[bigdaddycain]

Grooved brake discs on an XM? Black diamonds?

[MAZABON]

i have seen this happen before, its the calliper at fault not the pads, basically dirt in the pad runners, the little wings on the pad can get jammed on dirty runners in the calliper causing the pad plate to bend when the piston pushes against it, when replacing pads its worth cleaning the channels with a wire brush to remove the caked on brake dust and smear a bit of copperease in the channels that the pads run in , now the pads will move free in the calliper ( and dont get the copperease on the pad face or disc )