Replaced my rear discs and pads. Think they were overdue! (warning: grim images).

[ElCani]

As mentioned in another thread, I've been doing some basic maintenance on my 190,000 km MK3 1.0 EcoBoost. First time I've tackled significant car maintenance, but I'm generally good with fixing stuff (ex bike mechanic) and nothing's gone wrong yet. 

Did the rear discs and pads this afternoon and it's safe to say they were overdue. Quite embarrassed that I let them get to this state, all my bikes are meticulously maintained! I couldn't release the caliper retaining springs, so I had to just bend them out of the way and then bend them back on reassembly. Assume this doesn't mean imminent death? Hammering the discs off the hubs was a little alarming and the old pads basically crumbled into pieces, although they actually had loads of friction material left. 

Satisfying job, fronts (which don't look as bad) tomorrow. 

[F0CUE]

They are bad my old 2008 focus brakes were in better condition than that. It's like they were sitting in salt water for a year. I would get a brass wheel drill attachment and cover up your rubber parts on the caliper and go to town on that rust then some brake cleaner followed by degreaser and either some hammerite or brake caliper paint to sort them out. Because the springs are placed in at an angle if they rust they get stuck to remove them you litery have to keep spraying in some wd40 or gas plus in there and jiggle them until they release but carefully cos they can snap inside.

[ElCani]

Cheers for the reply. I am in Sweden, so the salt thing is not far off. I cleaned up everything as best I could with a wire brush, so it’s a fair bit better now. I’ll order some new springs and try and replace them when I change to winter tyres. 

[unofix]

Steptoe and Son had better brakes on the old Rag and Bone cart !!.

May be thats why we have an MOT test in the UK.

I think you should replace the calipers, and discs ,pads. For a 2013 car I don't think I've see brakes look so bad. What happened to them ?

[ElCani]

Cheers for the reply. I’ve done the discs (Ferodo) and pads (Bosch), which was the whole point of the exercise, and put everything back together. Brakes are working well, but then again they felt ok before!

In terms of what happened… age, salt, neglect? I bought the car four years ago at 150,000km, but I think they were mainly motorway miles. It doesn’t get a huge amount of use, roughly 10,000km a year. 
 

Interesting point about the MOT. The Swedish version is much less stringent than a UK MOT, IT takes under 10 mins and the only comment I’ve ever had is that the warning triangle was missing (it wasn’t). 

[Jimpster]

caning down the motorway last week car was not for stopping, booked in with my mech, rears ok just a service required. front on the other hand deeply scored only braking on one side, new pads and discs and a service on them as well, only just over 36,000 on it. gave it a once over while under it NO underseal anywhere. booked in for belts and filters, safety first.