harry wrote:
On 15 July, 13:15, Jo wrote:
Hello,

My car was taken to a garage for an unrelated problem. The garage said
my brakes were worn and needed replacing. They charged me £30 for the
parts and £55 for labour (excluding VAT).

The guy seemed shifty - he said if I paid with cash I wouldn't need to
pay VAT!

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/8355/brakediscs.jpg

Are these brakes worn and were his charges reasonable? I estimate the
thickness of the abrasive portion of the parts to be 5mm thick.

Sorry for my ignorance on the subject, I'm a medical student!

Thanks.

Jo

I would say there was lots of wear left on those pads. I can't quite
see, but lots of pads these days have thin metal projecting fingers
that rub on the disk when the pads are worn right down. They make a
screeching noise when they contact the disk. It just an audible
warning.

No that's the backing plates hitting the disks, a sign that you are
ruining the discs.

SOME cars USED to have copper wires embeded in the discs that lit a
light on the dash when they closed the circuit to the discs. Always
either corroding to a short, or wires falling off so they didn't work at
all. Not seem them recently.

Look a strip check of the brakes is a standard annual service thing. IF
the brakes are much below half worn, the questions has to be asked of
the customer 'how many miles do you so? when did you last have the
brakes relined?' because normally you would not want the pads to be less
that 2-3mm at the *next* service, which leaves a margin.

You SHOULD cehcek a cam belt every 50,000 miles and replace whether or
not its worn. You SHOULD drain the oil and fit a new filter every year.
You SHOULD drain the hydraulic fluid and replace it every 5 years, ditto
the cooling system. You SHOULD top up gear box and transmission every 5
years as well, even if there is no sign of a leak. You may also need to
lubricate things like racks and suspension joints every 5 years or so too.

These things are mostly never dome, so after ten years, things break.
Callipers corrode from water in the fluid. Cylinder heads and blocks
corrode because eh anti corrosion in the coolant is tired. Suspension
joints run dry and run out.

the cheapest way to run a car, is get one with a years MOT, and run it
till it fails an MOT or breaks. Then scarp it. The second cheapest way
is to get one a couole of years old, and maintain it and sell it when
its final warranty expires.

The third cheapest is a new car. The most expensive is to get a 5 year
-10 year old car, and fail to maintain it, and then have expensive bills
because its old, and been badly maintained.

The best of all is either a near scrapper, or a very old car that has
done very little mileage, having been taken to church once a week by an
old boy, who kept it in a garage, had it serviced, and finally died.

Those are worth maintaining properly.