On 08/05/2017 13:28, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Jethro_uk wrote:
On Mon, 08 May 2017 10:16:38 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
Jethro_uk wrote:
On Sun, 07 May 2017 09:19:31 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 07/05/17 03:30, alan_m wrote:
On 06/05/2017 22:11, DerbyBorn wrote:

Sounds good to me.
A micrometer and the specification is the proper way of
establishing wear surely though.

But unlikely to be the way the MOT tester "advises" a replacement.


Indeed. Unless you do a huge mileage, uneven disc wear and scoring
are likely to be more of a reason to replace that simple disk
thickness..

I used to service a police driving instructors car. His brakes were
like new at 40,000 miles.

Glad I never had to drive behind him in traffic. But then he probably
never did drive in heavy traffic.

He used gears - "always be in the right gear to accelerate away again"

As the saying goes, a worn gearbox and clutch are much more expensive to
replace than a set of pads. And changing gear purely to slow the car does
cause unnecessary wear on the box and clutch. And uses more fuel and
causes more pollution.

Not true.
You can change gear and not do any extra wear on the clutch or gearbox
if you do it properly.
The engine does the braking and it will be running anyway.
It won't be using any fuel while slowing so where does the extra
pollution come from?


I'll bet he was a poor instructor. Given the very short life of brakes
on police cars.

Operational cars have a different lifestyle.

Yes. They drive under real road conditions.

One of the courses he taught was royal protection - the idea is the
passengers don't know they are in a car - it should accelerate and
decelerate imperceptibly. They used a *very* shallow dish on the bonnet
with a ball bearing in it (and a copper alongside it to pick it up )

As I said, glad he doesn't drive in London.


You don't have to drive like an idiot just because you are in London.