Used Car Nearly Killed Me! Any Advice Please..

LandyAndy

pinkteapot wrote: »

How do you do this when MOT certs say "To preserve your MOT anniversary date the earliest you can present it for the next test is XYZ date."?

Always wondered this as when I bought my car the dealer gave me a new MOT but the previous one had only been done 6 months earlier.

You can have an MOT done any day of the year (or every day if you wish). However to post date the expiry date to 12 months from the end of the old MOT you must have the new one done less than one month before the old one expires.

andygb

gmbunn wrote: »

Hi Strider, I just said that I had problems the previous evening and would they look at them as I didnt want to drive on them until its looked at. One other point I forgot to mention was that they said there was rust on the discs and they dont 'skim' them anymore. I have no idea what skimming is but I assume its to remove the rust. Maybe its good they were replaced after all!

I would be surprised to see rust on the discs of any car which was used regularly, because every application of the brakes would cause the pads to remove the rust, even if they were worn down.
I really think more people should be a bit "pro active" in their attitude to their cars. A look under the bonnet every weekend to check fluid levels, and look for leaks, and removing the front and rear wheels every month to check pad/disc wear, does not take very long, but it can save you a lot of hassle and money in the future.

DKLS

Why didnt you cop a feel of the discs to see what condition they were in, admittedly hard to check the pads, but with discs its easy.

pwllbwdr

A number of posts have suggested a problem with the brake fluid boiling. I think this would cause no (or very little) brakes. Suggest the OP gets the brake fluid boiling point checked, and the fluid replaced if necessary. Brake fluid changes are very frequently ignored by owners. It isn't the sort of thing an MOT can pick up either.

Hammyman

pinkteapot wrote: »

How do you do this when MOT certs say "To preserve your MOT anniversary date the earliest you can present it for the next test is XYZ date."?

Always wondered this as when I bought my car the dealer gave me a new MOT but the previous one had only been done 6 months earlier.

The clue is in the part you quoted. In order to preserve a retest date a year from when the old one runs out, you must do it no earlier than a month before expiry of the current one. You can MOT a car every day of the year if you want but they'll run out exactly 12 months after the test unless your MOT test is within a month of the expiry of the current one in which case the new MOT will expire 12 months after the expiry of the current one.

Hammyman

pwllbwdr wrote: »

A number of posts have suggested a problem with the brake fluid boiling. I think this would cause no (or very little) brakes. Suggest the OP gets the brake fluid boiling point checked, and the fluid replaced if necessary. Brake fluid changes are very frequently ignored by owners.

TBH I'm not surprised. When I asked my main dealer how much a brake fluid change was with a service, I was asked why did I want it changing? Let me see....because its a 6 year old car and I've not changed it in the time I've had it? (Yes I know it should be every 2 years )

Stigy

Hammyman wrote: »

3 weeks ago, there wouldn't necessarily be grinding. There wouldn't be braking inefficiency.

Also it depends where the OP drives and their style of driving. I can drive 30 miles to a place I used to work at and use my brakes the total of 8 times. Compare that to driving in town.

I wasn't talking directly about this case at the time I don't think, as we'd wandered slighttly off topic...

Stigy

andygb wrote: »

I would be surprised to see rust on the discs of any car which was used regularly, because every application of the brakes would cause the pads to remove the rust, even if they were worn down...

Depends on if the pads are covering the full face of the discs (for example, uneven wear of the pads due to a partially seized brake caliper), if not, the part of the disc's face that's not touched by the pad can become corroded. It's mainly rear brakes that suffer from this, as only around 25% or braking occurs at the back.

BillTrac

gmbunn wrote: »

Please dont misunderstand me, I'm not saying the brakes failed completely, they just had me almost standing on the pedal to get the vehicle to stop.

Isn't just sods law that the very FIRST junction you have to stop at with the first car load of people on board results in you getting a red light ticket...:mad:

Are you saying that the red light offence was the very first time you touched the brakes on your journey? I know when I drive that if I even nudged the brakes and they felt a bit "wrong" I think I would either stop driving and check, or if that wasn't practical then I would approach ANY junction with extreme caution ( and very slowly as well..;))

bigjl

The only reasons why you would fail to pull up in time when braking is that you misjudged your approach speed, didn't see the light in time due to not paying attention, such as when you have a car full of relatives or the car didn't have the stopping ability that you expected.

Ignoring the lack of attention of poor judgement the most likely cause is the brakes faded, either due to them being used to harshly during the journey before they where applied for the junction or possible contamination of the brake fluid.

In London we have only just started to get rid of the last of the LDV V8 Ambulances, the number of times that I have had the brakes fade enroute to a call can't be counted, if you use brakes hard they will fade, low friction material will make very little if any difference to the braking ability, though it will make a difference in the brakes ability to disperse heat, leading to more being transmitted to the fluid.

I must admit that I haven't really looked into the braking system in my Mondeo but older diesels I have owned had a vacuum pump arrangement that provided extra braking force, without researching it I don't know if the Mondeo braking system is the same or even if this is still something fitted to cars. However I would suspect that the brakes would be crap all the time rather than just on one hard application.

Though when thinking about what the OP has posted I can't help thinking that the OP is trying to blame the red light offence on the brakes.