What is it and how much will it cost me??

Wonderingabout...

Hello

Just looking for any ideas because I'm stressing slightly as I am a student, within the last month have paid nearly £500 for repairs, new tyres, service and MOT and now it has just failed due to 'offside front brake excessively fluctuating' and 'front brakes imbalanced across an axel'...

I had my service a few days ago including the brake fluid being changed and had the new tyres fitted today prior to the MOT being done. (Couldn't get service and MOT done at same time for unrelated reason)

My question is now - what is the likely cause, and how much will it cost me. The garage seemed to think I would need new pads and discs and will be ringing me tomorrow with prices.....but they rushed my MOT because they 'forgot' about my car and so it was the end of the day so they couldn't give me a precise answer.

In the service they told me that my pads were pitted but it was ok and I didn't need to worry about it yet. I appreciate that brakes eventually need changing as the car ages but should any problem have been picked up in the service or would these issues not be detected?

Also could changing the brake fluid have caused any problems?

My car is an 07 Fiesta and has done 53000 miles. I don't do any heavy breaking normally.

Any ideas would be appreciated :eek:

flashg67

A service would only be a visual inspection and any distortion wouldn't be picked up at a normal service.

Changing the brake fluid is for safety reasons only because the fluid absorbs moisture overtime so won't have caused the problem.

It is possible the brakes are just sticking slightly, but any fluctuations recorded on the brake tester are likely to be due to the discs, so the garage's diagnosis sounds sensible.

Stick your car details in here for an idea how much the garage are paying for parts, factor in approx an hours' labour to give you an idea if their quote is fair - http://brakeparts.co.uk/