RE: Back to the brake bomb story...

[Aleksander Mierzwa <alex@matrix.com.pl>]

Gerard wrote:

	>They checked the car and
	>it found that my rotors in front could do with some skimming as
they
	>are warped. The rear is warped as well. They took the
measurements and
	>the fronts were 2mm under minimum but they skimmed them one
last time.
	>The rear rotors are gone beyond repair. The part of the rotor
where
	>the pad grips seems to be dug in by 0.5mm and the thickness of
the
	>rotor on the edge is a whopping 4mm below minimum.

A rotor worn 4mm below minium _must_ be renewed _immediately_. It can
break anytime!

	>They skimmed the front rotors and couldn't do anything with the
rear.
	>The replacement job for the rear runs into the $300 region
which I
	>can't afford. After that a lot of the shaking in the front has
gone and
	>some of the brake pressure has come back. The brakes make more
of the
	>loud scratching when I brake now, but I believe it is because
the pads
	>need to reset now.

Putting old brake pads onto newly turned rotors has no sense. They will
scratch the rotors before they settle, not to mention decreased brakes
efficiency. I think you should look for a source of aftermarket rotors.
I paid around $130 for new German aftermarket front rotors - rears
should be twice cheaper, because they're not ventilated. If this doesn't
work, some machine shops (at least in my country)  can make the rotors
using old ones as a guide. Always renew the brake pads when installing
new/resurfaced rotors.

	>Anyway, could the poor discs at the back give the impression of
a failed
	>accumulator  or not? The pedal does do some shudder at the
bottom of
	>its travel.

Four typical symptoms of a dead bomb:
* You get a "brake" warning signal when you press the brake pedal hard
* You feel vibration through the pedal when you press it hard with the
engine _idling_ and the vehicle _not_moving_
* Right after switching the engine off, you can feel that there's no
power assist to the brakes (pedal gets hard)
* If you leave the ignition on, you get the "brake" warning light after
approx. 1 minute.

Aleksander Mierzwa
Warsaw, Poland
mailto:alex@matrix.com.pl
87 Audi 5000CS turbo (mine)
88 Renault Medallion wagon (mom's)
91 mountain bike (just in case both cars broke at the same time :-)