Do you know enough to fix your own brakes properly?

Most workshops don't either!

They contract the work out to brake specialists, who often cut corners and consequentially endanger your family!

Braking systems on newer cars can deteriorate quickly, sometimes within a few months as wear and lack of preventative maintenance take their toll.

Harsh diving, dusty roads and bad weather can combine with some vehicle brake design to result in brakes losing effectiveness quite quickly.

Brake disc rotors can be damaged without the average driver knowing, as all appears normal until an emergency stop is needed.

the signs of disc pads or disc rotors being prematurely worn, especially if the car is pretty new and still has warranty.

It pays to inspect your disc brake rotors regularly not just to save money by seeing needed preventative maintenance but for your safety and that of your family.

Brake repair costs can be greatly reduced by you having the knowledge of proper servicing and keeping the wearing surfaces in good condition is essential for full braking power in an emergency stop.

That one time you need to stop good brakes save lives!

It takes less than a minute to inspect your brake rotors and ensure that they are in good basic working condition,

Apart from invisible fractures, which usually show up after accident damage, this simple inspection allows you see obvious wear and damage.

Here is what to look for when you inspect your brakes and disc rotors in simple terms with a photo of what your discs should look like when in top condition.

The photo shows a disc rotor in good order.

Inspection:

• walk around your vehicle and look at the wheels. They are the round things the tyre fits around!

• Look through the middle of the wheel. See that shiny dinner plate sized thingy on the inside? That is your disc rotor and they are always on the front brakes.

* Most good light vehicles have disc rotors on all four wheels.

Grooving.

Disc rotors should be smooth without any noticeable grooving. Grooving causes the disc rotors to run hot, brake unevenly and fade when used down long hills or when towing.

Wear.

Worn discs cause overheating which can result in total brake failure. It can also force oil out of wheel bearings which can destroy your disc rotor hub bearing surface which can be both dangerous and expensive to replace, especially if it is made in one piece.

No matter how sophisticated your car's braking system, it is only going to stop your vehicle by the pressure exerted on the disc pads when pressed hard against both sides of the rotor when you apply the brakes, so if the disc pads or rotors are worn braking capacity is reduced, and your car's brake assistance systems face real limitations in controlling your vehicle in an emergency stop.

Tire wear and braking:

Never forget to check for tire wear as worn tires cannot grip the road, so braking will make the tires skid and the car will not stop quickly or straight on the road.

A disc brake rotor that looks grooved like this needs machining.The brown rusty color of this caste iron disc is normal, the blue color on the wear surface is not.... it indicates that the brakes have been overheated!

NB: If one disc is like this and the other one on the other side looks OK you may have wheel cylinder component failure and the car should not be driven except carefully to the repairer.

A disc brake rotor in this condition is often the result of heavy use with already tired brakes.

The handbrake operates on the rear discs on many models, and if the handbrake is left on while driving this sort of damage can happen quickly to the rear discs.

Normally it is the front brakes that wear fastest and it is not uncommon to do the fronts several times before the rear is in need of repair.

If you can remove your wheel to change a flat you can do a pretty thorough brake inspection yourself in about half an hour just using your car's jack in the driveway.

A smart thing to do on a lazy weekend.

Inspection:

When you remove the wheel you will see the disc rotor, and the brake caliper with the brake pads in it that you could not see clearly before removing the wheel.

This is the part that squeezes the pads against the rotor to apply the brakes.

There should be no oil or grease around this area it must be bone dry! If you see dust that looks dark and wet or even damp anywhere in this region you have a wheel bearing that is dying or a hydraulic leak coming from worn caliper seals or piston and you will need to rebuild all the calipers.

If your brakes have been cared for and the car is not quite old it is rare to have brake caliper failure.

Never have one repaired on it's own unless the other side was recently repaired separately. The other one behaving done the same amount of braking is likely to fail soon also.

This is similar to what you see when you remove the wheel of your car.

This disc is ventilated. You are looking down on the assembly, so it is easy to see the disc pads.

These are nice and thick with plenty of wear left in them. Regular disc pad replacement is essential to avoid rotor damage.

The brake lathe is a precision machines that cuts a new surface on your disc rotors and must be 100% accurate to make your brakes perform properly. Some times they are not.

Some brake lathes in older shops are not kept in top condition as they must be to do a perfect brake rotor machining job.

I reconditioned and repaired these machines and was disgusted at the poor standards applied by many operators who were often poorly trained. I also saw major brake places using inaccurate machines.

Get the provider right and you can halve your machining costs. A well machined disc will outlast an inaccurately machined one by a large margin.

There are two machines that do an exceptional job of disc resurfacing.

The John Bean FMC has a long history as a top quality brake lathe.

West and others make good brake lathes but these two models will run accurately for 40 years without major repairs and can be set up to register +- 0 in run out for those who understand engineering tolerances this is pretty accurate when you are measuring  1000 thousandths of an inch with a dial gauge.

Warped discs.

When brakes are used hard they can overheat and warp a brake disc. Even a lay person can detect a warped disc as it makes the braking change in such a way that when you are rolling to a stop the car brakes seem to stop the car unevenly resulting in your head going backwards and forward as the warped disc gives a stop start feel to slowing down.