Not really mini, I hope no-one minds though...

I helped a friend change her disc pads out on her Hyundai three months back, I think we used Ferrordo or DB pads from Repco for 35 dollars. Five months later she has the car serviced by a Mechanic. He tells her that her brake pads are stuffed and that she needs to have them changed out. Naturally she doesn't believe him and has me look at them again. Sure enough, they are worn down to the metal on two pads, and the little alarm thingies that are meant to warn you that your pads are nearly through are broken off above the backing plate.

Soooo...before I go down and accuse this guy of ripping the lady off by putting in worn brake (Breake ) pads, and burning the workshop to the ground, is it possible the pads have naturally worn down in less than 10000 K's, (she doesn't ride the brakes I am assured) and if so, why would the little pad wear alarms have snapped off? Could it have been a crappy batch of pads?

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

Some of these pads are pretty soft stuff now and do wear fast, 10,000K is a bit soon though. Is it auto? They wear 'em sooner.

re the telltales, maybe the pads were faulty.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

could be the fact that they are non genuine pads for the car.....

with volvo at work we get alot of non genuine pads fitted to them.....the customers come in complaining of brake squeel, hrd pedal pressure and lack of performance,

also with land rovers....aftermarket pads actually cause a really high pitch squell (which we cant hear) but the squell actually buggers up the ABS sensor and causes the ABS light's to come on the dash, change to genuine pads...alll good again,

as for FERODO pads, we have used 2 set sofar on the KAZZY69 charade
and we have done over 60,000ks, and the car does cop a hard thrashing and hard braking,

if only one pad has worn badly (in each caliper) it could be that the FLOATING pins in the caliper arent sliding freely and causing the piston pad to wear faster than the caiper pad (if thats the case...)

blake

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ausmini member 195

71K 'Kaye', KAZZ69's work in progress
66 panelvan, going no where fast...
71 MS75 toyota crown COUPE yes A COUPE!
76 ra23 celica wid 1ggte, GT3071r, 13.5@106mph with alot of spinin....

wheels keep on turnin!

Geez, I would think that 50 to 100 K would be a better mileage for a set of pads, must be this goddam Sydney driving huh? For the pads to wear out at 10,000 I would have to think they were made of cornflake packages rather than pad material. Although it is an automatic as the Doc asked.

I did check the movement of the pins for the floating calliper, the two pads that showed less wear were only a couple of mm's behind, and they were on the outside of the calliper so I guess that's not too bad.

I just can't figure out if she has had a dodgy attempt by a mechanic to rip her off. What about the pad alarm indicators being snapped off?

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

usually 2-3 mm difference MAX in pad wear between inside pad (piston pad) outside pad (caliper pad)

as for the sensors braking off.......

are the sensors a part of the sliding caliper or a part of the pad,

rangerovers/bmws/mercs, have them as a contact pad on the caliper it self and actually comes in contact with the disk (ground for the circuit and light apears on the dash when brakes are applied)

10,000 does sound low for a small medium car (guessing its a small med)

the charade i brought round to pick the carpets up does 30ks between pads, with hard braking, (using ferodo pads)

LM rangerovers, and discoverys go thorugh pad's AND discs in under 20000ks, (but they are 4WD's)

blake

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ausmini member 195

71K 'Kaye', KAZZ69's work in progress
66 panelvan, going no where fast...
71 MS75 toyota crown COUPE yes A COUPE!
76 ra23 celica wid 1ggte, GT3071r, 13.5@106mph with alot of spinin....

wheels keep on turnin!

we put ferrodo pads in mums camry(automatic) and they wore super fast couldn't beleive it fast so we changed them out for bendix advanced(trade price at repco $50 something dollars and they were the best pads we had ever used

By the way my mum reckons she dosent ride the breaks(lol) either BULLSHIT

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67' Matic
73' S

Those warning thingies are actually not electrical, although I have seen the devices you spek of, Metros used them I think. They use an embedded brush within the calliper connected to a wire.

These are bent bits of metal attached to the backing plate of the pad which contact the disc as the pad wears down. They ring like a tuning fork and make an audible noise as the disc rotates. These ones could not be heard becaue they were snapped off behind the backing plate so they could not contact the disc. Looks like SABOTAGE! (But may have simply come away cos the pad wore down so quickly) So I am in a quandry as to what happened.

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

I don't see why a mechanic would snap of the bit that tells you you have to go back to the mechanic to get more brake pads the sooner you come in for new pads the better from thier point of view.

I reckon it is most likely a bad brand or batch of pads try a differnt brand maybe not much else you can do

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Roads need more corners
A Deluxe(CG13DE), 2 Clubbies(998 and 1275) and 2 Morris 1100Ss

I'd fit some EBC Greenstuffs. Kevlar. The bloody things last for years, don't wear the disc rotors either.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Yeah I see your point about the wear indicators, I thought maybe he had a set of crap pads that were worn down and h'e stick those in.

The car belongs to a young couple and really is a POS excel. They got a new set of pads and I showed her how to put them in. I did one side, and she put the other side in with a little help.

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

My dad never worked out why we only got 3 months (7000 ks) out of a set of bendix pads - the thing had no bloody power, so to make up for this required a late braking technique.

I reckon the hyundai excel is the JB Camira of this generation...

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One should never skimp on the zip ties.