New Brakes on recently bought 2nd hand car

JP08

That makes more sense ... misinterpretation.

arcon5

All this talk of unroadworthiness, yet we don't know yet whether they are actually in need of immediate replacement or if he's just hearing the wear indicator!

roneik

You don't say what mileage is on the car. If the car had alloys you can see, and run finger over disks for deep scoring and the ledge that you get with high mileage. Brake pads are harder than the disks so it's only when extreme wear on disks shout pads worn alert. Don't run finger over after road testing, as disks get very hot. I would expect a car that old to have at least 30k on the clock and heavy footed braking for the described wear. As earlier poster said copper grease on shims behind pads stop the squealing, unless you are down to the rivets. Also most cars now have a sensor that throws up a warning on the dash when pads are worn. Been around since anti lock ABS breaks were dream t up if not longer. Not a hard job to change disks and brakes. Although some cars have to have a tool to compress the pistons so that you can insert the pads (early current minis) for an example

motorguy

roneik wrote: »

You don't say what mileage is on the car.

On the first line of the first post he says it has 25,500 miles.

roneik

Must have been distracted by the dog menacingly snarling at me. After many attempts at keeping him at bay finally I succumbed to being flung to the floor and wrestling him back to his reinforced cage I missed the vital mileage bit. :rotfl:

forgotmyname

JP08 wrote: »

That makes more sense ... misinterpretation.

Yeah, As Adrian C pointed out they would replace them if they suspected less than that amount of mileage left in them.

Although i have worn down a set of discs and pads in 8000 miles, that was helped by offroading and plenty of mud that acted like grinding paste.

But brakes can wear at opposite ends of the scale depending on the driver and journey types. Slowing the car down from speed will eat more material than someone that only goes out to the shops when there is very little traffic and barely reached 30mph, so very gentle on the brakes.

pendragon_arther

forgotmyname wrote: »

Wear and tear and service items.

A decent garage will change them when they get fairly low and expect them to last less than 3000 - 6000 miles.

If the condition of the pads was a criteria when buying then you need to check them yourself.

How many times have you jacked up a car you wanted to buy, taken off the wheels and checked the brakes for wear?

thescouselander

I'd expect at least 60,000 miles from a set of pads with mixed driving. There must be something else going on here - definitely worth giving trading standards a call.

bigjl

thescouselander wrote: »

I'd expect at least 60,000 miles from a set of pads with mixed driving. There must be something else going on here - definitely worth giving trading standards a call.

That is the beauty of life.

Everybody is different.

If somebody is king of the late breakers and also zooms up to every red light and anchors up or zooms up behind the car in front and slams on the brakes every time they can go through pads much faster than others.

A small car like the OP has bought is often bought by younger drivers who do tend to rely more on braking rather than anticipation.

When I was a Courier many moons ago I worked for a Company in Hemel that had company bikes. We would do 2, 3 or even 4 return trips to Central London every day.

Being young and impatient I would fly around braking as hard as I could all the time.

Net result was that a brand new set of pads were done in just over a week, though this was the first time they had fitted EBC Kevlar pads so perhaps they were prone to heavy wear? The miles covered would have been around 1500/2000 no more than that, it was also a fairly warm summer which again may have had an influence.

bigjl

pendragon_arther wrote: »

How many times have you jacked up a car you wanted to buy, taken off the wheels and checked the brakes for wear?

Depending on if the car has alloys or steel wheels I check the brakes quickly even when buying at auction.

In the OPs case I would expect the Garage to change the pads as clearly they were nearing the end of their life.

Trying to get discs done aswell is worth a try but I don't think the dealer will spring for it.

At £6k the OP has paid about the right price for a well maintained 3 1/2 yr old Corsa.

If he had paid £4.5k for it perhaps he would expect issues such as this but when paying the high end of the price range you should expect it to have been properly checked over prior to sale.

When my car was serviced recently they had measured the thickness of the pad material on every wheel.

Takes a competent mechanic minutes.

The other option is have the brakes done with some nice quality parts from EuroCarParts and take the dealer to the small claims court.

At least the OP has some idea of the quality of the parts fitted and also has the old parts to keep as evidence should things progress further.