Hello everyone, my car failed it's MOT yesterday on a loose headlight, which turned out to be a lot more hassle than expected as the previous owner had snapped the bolt in the upper mounting and then my easy out decided to snap too! Anyway with that sorted the car passed with 1 advisory (not too bad for a 9 year old car with 169,500 miles on lol)

Advisory notice item(s)

• Front brake disc worn, pitted or scored, but not seriously weakened (3.5.1i)

Not sure how this happened as I never let my pads get too low, luckily pads & discs are only £50 but I just wanted to check I'm not missing anything out, other than the pads & discs do I just need copper grease & brake cleaner (along with tools obviously). 

 

at that sort of mileage I would expect a lot of wear on the discs. it says worn pitted or scored, ie. it can be any one of those. Usually a good sign of them being worn down a lot is the lip on the edge.  Some MOT testers have their own little pet hates for advisories. Perhaps this one always puts this advisory on when he sees a lip on the disc edge. But if it was dangerous it would have failed. I would be tempted to leave them on there. Maybe change the discs when the pads are next in need of changing. Of course I have not seen them so it is hard to know how bad they are. 

Don't know about brake cleaner, I have never used it.   I always use copper grease. On one of these Ford forums there was a debate about copper grease recently. many people said they use it, many said they don't and there is no point.  One thing I always do is clean up the caliper edges where the metal edges of the brake pad backing makes contact as it is usually rusty there and stops the pad moving properly. I use a file for this, not vigorously, I then smear a very small amount of copper grease where I filed it. Obviously not overdoing it as you don't want it getting on the discs or pad surface. 

Thanks for the reply, I had a quick look after posting this and there is a slight lip on the discs but it's literally tiny, the car is only used for driving to work & back so no crazy mileage since I've owned it.  I'm pleased it past the mot with just having to drill the headlight so I don't mind paying for new discs and pads, what do you use to clean new discs before fitting then?

i didnt clean my discs before i fitted them, just stuck them on and happy days, here is a step by step guide to fit your brakes...

1 take out securing brake wire with screwdriver

2 remove 2 bolts with 7 Alan key and wrench

3 Remove calliper (may take a flat head screwdriver between hub and disc to free)

4 Use calliper rewind tool to push piston up (may need to remove pad)

5 Secure calliper out of the way

6 Remove 2 bolts from the metal brake clamp

7 fit disc

8 Screw 2 bolts into the metal brake clamp

9 Push pad into piston

10 slide pad into slot between metal brake clamp and disc

11 place calliper on disc

12 use 7 Alan key to secure calliper

13 refit metal wire

Depends which discs you buy.  Some come painted (like Pagid) so don't need cleaning.  Some come oiled so that needs cleaning off to avoid contaminating the pads.  Halfords or any motorfactor will sell brake cleaner for this purpose.  You can use something like panel wipe if you've got it, needs to be something that removes oil but won't leave a residue.

There's also an easier way of pushing the piston back than using 'proper' tools, before removing the pads, stick a screwdriver between the rear pad and disc and lever them apart slowly.

23 hours ago, BP2411 said:

Hello everyone, my car failed it's MOT yesterday on a loose headlight, which turned out to be a lot more hassle than expected as the previous owner had snapped the bolt in the upper mounting and then my easy out decided to snap too! Anyway with that sorted the car passed with 1 advisory (not too bad for a 9 year old car with 169,500 miles on lol)

Advisory notice item(s)

• Front brake disc worn, pitted or scored, but not seriously weakened (3.5.1i)

Not sure how this happened as I never let my pads get too low, luckily pads & discs are only £50 but I just wanted to check I'm not missing anything out, other than the pads & discs do I just need copper grease & brake cleaner (along with tools obviously). 

 

Where have you found discs and pads for £50 that's way cheap? 

Also check out you tube for brake change advice its been invaluable to me 

2 hours ago, DavyTee said:

Where have you found discs and pads for £50 that's way cheap? 

Also check out you tube for brake change advice its been invaluable to me 

eBay, £45 but no mention of brand or £55 for mintex, I've watched a YouTube video which is slightly different to how Martin described but still pretty straight forward.  Was more about disc cleaning and whether people use copper grease.

Cheers everyone!

Just don't use copper slip on the guide pins, the copper is abrasive and will eat away at the rubber. You only really grease the pins to keep moisure out, but you can be fancy and use a silicone based grease if you want. Modern pads don't need copperslip on the back (or some even the side "ears"), but there's no harm in still putting some on anyway.

I always clean my discs with brake clean before I fit them, you don't want to comtaminate those brand new pads with oil. Some rubbing alcohol will do if you don't use brake clean.

Edd China has recently done a detailed video on how to properly change brakes, but it was a sponsored video so he said to use the sponsors grease instead of copperslip (even though he used copperslip for years on Wheeler Dealer). Other than that it's a great video.

On 12/4/2018 at 11:18 PM, Luke4efc said:

 

Edd China has recently done a detailed video on how to properly change brakes, but it was a sponsored video so he said to use the sponsors grease instead of copperslip (even though he used copperslip for years on Wheeler Dealer). Other than that it's a great video.

Excellent video that one thanks for the recommendation 👍

 

Just a quick update on this, finally had the time to swap my brake discs & pads today.  Pads had loads left on them but changed them anyway, main reason I wanted to update this was because of how impressed I was with the mintex discs & pads I bought from eBay, they were sent via DPD next day & included general instructions and grease for the guide pins. 

6 hours ago, BP2411 said:

Just a quick update on this, finally had the time to swap my brake discs & pads today.  Pads had loads left on them but changed them anyway, main reason I wanted to update this was because of how impressed I was with the mintex discs & pads I bought from eBay, they were sent via DPD next day & included general instructions and grease for the guide pins. 

Can you name the seller for future reference please 

quality.car.parts

can't get a link to work unfortunately

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?sid=quality.car.parts&isRefine=true&_pgn=1

On 5/17/2018 at 10:21 PM, BP2411 said:

quality.car.parts

can't get a link to work unfortunately

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?sid=quality.car.parts&isRefine=true&_pgn=1

I've bought several Mintex discs and pads from that seller, top notch every time.  All 6 discs are still on the cars doing their thing 😁