Another post on a colleagues behalf...
Her daughter took her mini cooper to be MOT'd at a main dealer and was told by the receptionist the rear discs are heavily corroded and need replacing. Braking efficiency was marked on the advisory as 57% but worryingly it went onto say 'in my opinion the vehicle is dangerous to drive!
Yet they passed it and gave another years MOT!
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sounds like a con. you could take it to another garage to have a look but the fact they passed it means its not as bad as they made out.
i also wonder if it was a women takes the car to a garage and the garage thinks im going to made a load of money out of this customer.
my misses has had this a few times. fortunatley her ex is a mechanic and she learnt some basic mechanics. so she is aware.
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>> .................. but worryingly it went onto say 'in my
>> opinion the vehicle is dangerous to drive!
>>
>> Yet they passed it and gave another years MOT!
The dealer's personal opinion and the MOT pass aren't necessarily based on the same standard. It sounds as if the dealer's personal opinion was more strict than the MOT requirements.
Incidentally, the MOT pass only refers to the car's condition on the day it was tested, and not to any deterioration that might (or might not) occur in the following twelve months.
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I had that on an MOT on my Merc - much sucking of teeth and "they could really do with changing". I said "sure, go ahead and do them".
Then they asked how I'd be paying. "MB SevicePlus" I said. You should have seen the panic in their faces knowing MB probably wouldn't pay them!
On wifey's Jazz, Honda just replaced the rear discs under warranty at 3yrs old as they were corroded. The dealer tells me the issue with Jazz (and probably affects MINI too) is the rear brakes are barely used so the discs don't get cleaned up if the car is only used for short journeys and rust sets in.
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>> the rear brakes are barely used so the discs don't get cleaned up if the car is only used for short journeys
Rear disc brakes are just another marketing con, they look "cool" so the customers demand them.
The Toyota Prius comes with rear drums in every market around the world except the UK where fashion dictates the need to fit discs.
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>>
>> Rear disc brakes are just another marketing con, they look "cool" so the customers demand
>> them.
>>
Yet they look terrible when they're corroded. It was the appearance argument I used to get Honda to change them. The dealer said if they work fine and if they replace them they'll go rusty again.
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>> took her mini cooper to be MOT'd and was the rear discs are heavily corroded
Presumably a BMW Mini?
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Definitely not a "real" Mini if it has rear disks. :-)
Last edited by: Old Navy on Tue 11 Dec 12 at 10:13
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There are Minis and MINIs. Unfortunately this clever marketing distinction goes over the heads of most customers, who haven't been on the training course.
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I don't need a training course to tell the difference between a Mini and a MINI. :-)
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>> I don't need a training course to tell the difference between a Mini and a
>> MINI. :-)
>>
I just look at the badges on the back.
;-)
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>> I don't need a training course to tell the difference between a Mini and a
>> MINI. :-)
I did say "most". Could have excluded trained naval observers.
When somebody writes "Mini" and they mean "MINI", I assume the distinction has passed them by.
The other big flaw in this genius idea, apart from the need to point out the difference, is that it doesn't work at all, verbally.
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>> The other big flaw in this genius idea, apart from the need to point out
>> the difference, is that it doesn't work at all, verbally.
>>
And the MINI website is www.mini.co.uk
Very confusing.
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URLs are not case sensitive.
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>> URLs are not case sensitive.
That's because hostnames, including fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) are not case sensitive. www.mini.co.uk is a FQDN and the IP will be looked up using a DNS lookup.
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Surely these days the default is that it's the BMW MINI.
My advice would be to take it to a good indy. Souns like a fault on the rear brakes but OTOH they may just lack exercise if it's rarely carrying more than just the driver.
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>> Sounds like a fault
>> on the rear brakes but OTOH they may just lack exercise if it's rarely carrying
>> more than just the driver.
The car needs to have a regular diet of handbrake turns.
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>> The car needs to have a regular diet of handbrake turns.
>>
Carefully blended with an Italian tune up. Assuming the handbrake uses the rear disc pads.
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To add to her daughters woes, mum told me she had also booked the car in for a service but was told it didnt need one due to the low mileage. Apparently she can go 2 yrs between services!
When the oil was checked by a friend later that day it barely registered on the dipstick.
Mum has recently bought a TLC package which covers all service costs for 3 years but I reckon she's wasting her time and money because with potentially only one service due in that time she'll never recoup the cost of the package vs the cost of a service.
I too reckon she's better off with a good indy mechanic.
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>> mileage. Apparently she can go 2 yrs between services!
>> When the oil was checked by a friend later that day it barely registered on
>> the dipstick.
Services do not absolve the drivers responsibility to check the fluid levels from time to time.
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>> To add to her daughters woes, mum told me she had also booked the car
>> in for a service but was told it didnt need one due to the low
>> mileage. Apparently she can go 2 yrs between services!
>> When the oil was checked by a friend later that day it barely registered on
>> the dipstick.
Oil level low on the dipstick is nowt to do with main dealer or indy servicing!
Someone should train the young lady to carry out certain basic checks on a daily, weekly or monthly schedule.
Otherwise driving with low oil may prompt to use of the word 'dipstick' in another context!
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A friend was visiting Mrs ON recently, she asked if she could top up her screen washers as they were empty. I put on my best shining Knights armour and volunteered to do the job. I checked the other fluids and found that the oil was just registering on the tip of the dipstick. As she is a nurse I explained that oil is like blood, no blood you die, no oil your engine dies. I hope she got the message. :-)
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well the astra has just sailed through its mot at my local indy. come march time the misses needs to decide to stick or twist. 166,000 miles now and not getting the runs it needs these days
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Give me rear drums any day. The Colt stops on a Tanner and the hand brake works too.
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The first car I drove with all-disc brakes was an Audi 80, one with a small engine but brand new and a journalists' demonstrator. The car was quite nice if a bit raucous at the top end, and the brakes were utterly fabulous, lots of feel and terrific stopping power. After that I drove nothing but disc-drum combos which were all perfectly all right if working properly. My present car has all discs and the brakes are terrific when working properly.
Pootling motorists with fast taut cars sometimes drive so gently that the back brakes don't get used. The resulting corrosion can cause problems, roughness and inefficiency when the rear brakes are called on. If you're a mimser don't buy that sort of car.
A skin of rust will form overnight on all the discs in wet weather. It gets cleaned off as soon as the brakes are used. It's a non-issue except for the half-witted.
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>> A skin of rust will form overnight on all the discs in wet weather. It
>> gets cleaned off as soon as the brakes are used. It's a non-issue except for
>> the half-witted.
Indeedy. Not uncommon for the Xantia's front wheel disc handbrake to sick on after a wet weekend. Releases with a bang after half a yard as rust v 110PS is no contest.
OTOH most parking brakes work on the rear. If tyre friction's not going to drag them off you're stuck.
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It can be a problem for us hybrid car drivers, as you tend not to use the brakes anything like as much as in other cars.*
Sometimes you are driving behind a serial braker, who seems to touch the pedal every few yards at the slightest impulse. I was behind one yesterday - over the all of two miles we covered, I counted - he touched the brakes seventeen times, whereas I touched them twice. All very well, but his brakes won't be rusty, and mine are probably a solid lump of gunk by now.
*Boring reason why: the battery is recharged as the car slows, so you don't coast in quite the same way, and even touching the pedal doesn't always actually mean the brakes are physically applied. It's "clever" enough to avoid that and use the engine to drive the electric motor backwards as much as it can.
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Discs seem to be made from low-grade steel now, designed to rust heavily.
Proper older discs were made of cast iron. They wore better, and hardly rusted.
I've had 300,000 miles from rear Volvo discs, and those on the Triumph (front) are 45 years old. It recently passed its MOT with the comment that the brakes were exceptionally good, including the handbrake on the rear drums.
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I wonder if heat dissipation was part of the reason for the change, Cliff. Cast iron soaks up a lot of heat and releases it slowly - great for braising lamb shanks but less so for consistent braking performance, especially as cars have got faster and heavier.
Besides, steel discs can last well too. My Volvo rear pair lasted 114,000 miles (until I got a stern MoT advisory about pitting) and the original fronts are still there after more than 130,000.
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>> A skin of rust will form overnight on all the discs in wet weather. It
>> gets cleaned off as soon as the brakes are used. It's a non-issue except for
>> the half-witted.
>>
Sometimes I don't use my Merc for a couple of weeks so the discs look very rusty. But they clean up (front and rear) with no special effort.
Same on the Golf - only used for short trips and the rear discs are clean and shiny.
However our Honda Jazz, as mentioned earlier, is used every day but the rear discs just don't clean up completely.
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>> >> Sounds like a fault
>> >> on the rear brakes but OTOH they may just lack exercise if it's rarely
>> carrying
>> >> more than just the driver.
>>
>> The car needs to have a regular diet of handbrake turns.
>>
It's owned and driven by a woman and yet is not regularly driven for distances with the handbrake on?
My faith in human nature has been destroyed.
;-}
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I think excessive rear disc wear could be down to the fitting of ESP or the equivalent, this system uses the rear brakes to stablise the car without the driver sometimes knowing, just a thought.
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MOT and advisory - **Dangerous** - diddy1234
