Brake check

76804

Hi.i had a full brake check done. I'd said my brakes felt spongy. Was told they couldn't find anything wrong but filled up brake fluid. £55 later. Same place MOTed the car 2 days later. Then less than 2 weeks brakes failed. Took to differant garage and told the caliper was broke. They said this should have been picked up on brake check. Should I take this further? 

Ayr_Rage

I cannot see any MOT centre passing a vehicle with faulty brakes especially as they've already worked on those items recently.

Trying to prove they missed a broken caliper, looked again and gave it an MOT pass two days later is going to be impossible.

If the system didn't lose fluid then the caliper failure may well have happened those two weeks later.

I don't think you have any chance of taking it further.

Mildly_Miffed

The MOT standard for brakes is laughably low.

Basically, as long as both wheels brake reasonably equally, don't stay on when the foot is removed, and the hydraulics aren't leaking, they're a pass. The tester isn't allowed to remove wheels. The actual braking effort required is risibly low.

You took the car in complaining of sponginess - which suggests air in the hydraulics. They topped the fluid up, which suggests it was low. For a cost of less than an hour's labour, I'd guess they jacked it up, pulled the wheels, had a quick visual inspection to see if they could see any leaks, and that was about it.

Nothing there to complain about when the caliper then failed completely a fortnight later, post-MOT.

I suspect the root cause was omitting brake fluid changes... Old, wet fluid rusts calipers and cylinders out from the inside. It should be changed every few years, but it's often skipped to save an hour's labour every other year and a few quid of fluid. False economy.

Bigwheels1111

A Mot is only valid the day it is issued.
Could your brakes fail next day, well yes, stone chip on windscreen, yes.
Just get on with your life.
Not worth upsetting yourself.

tedted

You have 28 days to complain if you consider it shouldn't have passed

Ditzy_Mitzy

Changing the brake fluid and bleeding the system could have precipitated the failure, in that restoring full pressure to the hydraulics may have placed the caliper under additional strain - i.e. the strain it should have been under in the first place - and cracked it.  Something similar happened to me after bleeding the brakes in an old car: getting the system working properly resulted in a slave cylinder snapping in half!

Having said that, the garage who checked the brakes can't possibly have known that the caliper was in poor condition - if the above is what happened, of course.  Finding out has done you a favour and you ought to thank them!  

Mildly_Miffed

tedted said:

You have 28 days to complain if you consider it shouldn't have passed

On what grounds?
Was the caliper visibly leaking?
Were the brakes so poor that they didn't meet the 50% efficiency requirement?

If so, why was the OP still driving it...?

tedted

if he feels it shouldn't have failed he can get dvsa to redo the mot as long as he hasnt had it repaired.and they use maximum effort for the brake test 

Mildly_Miffed

tedted said:

if he feels it shouldn't have failed

It didn't fail the MOT...

You can appeal a pass, too - but again, only until repair.

Ectophile

The bar to pass an MOT is pretty low.  So long as the brakes work, and work evenly on both sides, it will pass.

Many years ago, I didn't think the brakes on my car were working well.  But it was due an MOT, so I put it in and it passed.  I then took the car to a local garage who found that both rear brake cylinders were leaking.  That leak wouldn't have been visible on the MOT.  And because both sides were leaking, both rear brakes were equally bad, and it passed.

Baldytyke88

76804 said:

Hi.i had a full brake check done. I'd said my brakes felt spongy. Was told they couldn't find anything wrong but filled up brake fluid. £55 later. Same place MOTed the car 2 days later. Then less than 2 weeks brakes failed. Took to differant garage and told the caliper was broke. They said this should have been picked up on brake check. Should I take this further? 

What do you mean when you say the brakes failed?