Brakes Incident

Macca1983

Just looking for some advice if anyone could possibly help.

Friday morning I was driving to work and applied my brakes to stop at a roundabout when there was a bang of some sort at the front of my car and I lost quite a bit of braking power.

I managed to limp the car to a local garage who said that the brake pad had disappeared from my front left tyre and the disc had been damaged also from the scraping without a brake pad.

I left it to be repaired and a few hours later I got a call back, the mechanic said that the brakes fitted to the front of my car were the wrong ones for the car I had. They should have been ventilated and they weren't.

I've asked if they were ok to be fitted and he said they shouldn't have been, I asked also if they were dangerous and he said that they were. He also said it will be hard to prove who did the repairs to the brakes.

I bought the car second-hand from a main dealer in Aug 09 and the brakes haven't been changed since I bought it.

I don't think I have a leg to stand on with this due to the time lapsed etc but I'm not happy that I've been sold a car with 'dangerous' brakes and I wondered where I could possibly go from here?

I'm going to write a letter to the dealer to explain whats happened and what they can do about it?

MX5huggy

Forget it and move on. You have suffered no loss, who is to say the brakes would not have needed changing any way.

slyracoon

Heres another theory - could it be that the garage carrying out the repair is trying to sell you more expensive vented discs by claiming that you had the wrong ones? Accompanied by some scare tactics.

What car is it? I'm sure somebody will be able to confirm the correct type of disc.

Gordon_Hose

Yeah, just get the correct brakes fitted and move on. Luckily nothing serious happened and no-one was hurt! I know that's no excuse for fitting the wrong brakes, but you'll have a hard time proving it was the dealers fault. They may have bought the car themselves with dodgy brakes and sold it on none-the-wiser.

Viper_7

When you say vented, are they just vented or are they drilled through?

As just said vented disks are more expensive, it's unlikely a non-vented disk would cause a pad to part company with the backing plate so the previous replacement may have just been done with cheaper parts.

They would seriously have to overheat and you'd have had braking problems with both fade and vibration (due to the disks warping) way before actual structural failure.

Gloomendoom

slyracoon wrote: »

Heres another theory - could it be that the garage carrying out the repair is trying to sell you more expensive vented discs by claiming that you had the wrong ones? Accompanied by some scare tactics.

What car is it? I'm sure somebody will be able to confirm the correct type of disc.

I don't think the garage was using scare tactics.

Because a non vented disc is thinner than a vented disc it is possible that as the pad has worn down it has been possible to push it completely out of the calliper when you applied the brakes. Something that is virtually impossible if the thicker vented disc has been fitted.

It could have been a lot worse. You, or somebody else, could have been killed or seriously injured for the sake of a few pounds.

On the other hand, it may just have been a stupid mistake.

Gordon_Hose

It could have been something simple like someone picking the wrong brake disc as it was stored on the wrong shelf, or a misprint of the part number.

Macca1983

I agree it could be very hard to prove and with the time that's elapsed as well it could make things very impossible.

Thankfully the only cost is the brakes themselves. I don't think the garage would try scare tactics, the mechanic is a friend of the family and we've known him many years. I'll be a bit :mad: if that was the case.

The car is a 56 reg Fiat Grande Punto. Not a clue what he meant by vented but the discs on the car seemed to just be solid, no holes? That might be my untrained eye though.

maninthestreet

What make, model and trim level is the car?

Macca1983

maninthestreet wrote: »

What make, model and trim level is the car?

Fiat Grande Punto 1.2 Dynamic 56 reg

slyracoon

Macca1983 wrote: »

Fiat Grande Punto 1.2 Dynamic 56 reg

The quick bit of research I have done suggests there are solid discs and vented discs available for the 1.2, its down to the trim level as to which are factory fitted.

The Dynamic trim level would have come with vented discs and the Active trim level would have come with solid discs from the factory.

Theres nothing dangerous about substituting the different disc types available for this car so long as they are fitted correctly and with the correct pads. Obviously vented discs will give higher performance but in a 1.2 car I doubt braking performance would be an issue.