Hello,
Our C-Max 2.0TDCi recently started suffering a grinding sound around the rear. It is the Ghia model with the electronic parking brake.
Well it's gone to the garage and they have diagnosed that the rear brakes and disks are completely worn and want to replace them. Cost = £220.
This seems a bit of a blow for a 2yr car with 20K on the clock. Is this indicative of a problem or is this to be expected? Its a Ford Direct car btw.
Any thoughts people?
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My Berlingo last needed new discs & pads at 55,000. Time before that was 37,000. That is 18,000 between changes, and about 21 months.
Either you don't have a serious problem or I do.
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It seems to be another area where experiences vary hugely. To my knowledge, none of my cars has ever needed new discs. The last one (Saab) did 54,000 miles in four years; the present one (Volvo) is just coming up to five years and 57,000. I'd have to check service invoices to see if it's even had new pads; certainly never needed them as an extraordinary item.
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Like Tyro's our Berlingo needed new discs/pads at around 35k/2yrs 4 mths. Dealer referred to corrosion rather than wear; tried a warranty claim but no joy from Citroen.
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Toad the Supra was serviced and MOT'd yesterday. He passed, but the service report stated over 50% pad wear, front and rear; at a little under 14,000 miles this seems consistent.
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A lot depend son the car weight imo: Rover 800 20k per pad set, Mercedes 260 25k, 1.6 Fiesta 40k plus,Audi A4 35k plus, BMW 320i 30k plus, current Yaris? dunno .. pads about 50% worn after 32k miles.
madf
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Ever since they took asbestos out of brake pads, discs definitely don't last as long, but I would expect rears to go longer than 20k.
I bought the Mondeo in 2005 with 97k on it. It now has 135k on it and the rear brakes have never been touched. Pads still have 7mm or so on them, and the discs are fine. Spins the dial healthily round come MOT time, so they work OK too.
I've just replaced the fronts (pads and discs) for the second time for the last MOT in July. They were first done the same week I bought the car, so I got just over 30k from them. Pads were down to about 3mm and the discs were fairly lipped. I could probably have got away with re-using them, but at £30 for a pair of known brand discs, and another 5 minutes max work, it wasn't worth taking the chance.
The Scenic's going to need front pads and discs in the next couple of months - discs are original, and pads were fitted at 24,000 miles. The rear discs (thankfully OK at the moment) will be a bigger worry - discs are integral with wheel bearings, and are over £100 each from Renault, just for the bits!!
Cheers
DP
--
04 Grand Scenic 1.9 dCi Dynamique
00 Mondeo 1.8TD LX
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I should add that I think that in the case of my Berlingo, both sets were front (rather than rear) - so perhaps not so relevant to your case as I thought.
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Brakes are like tyres and clutches. The rate of wear depends largely on the driver.
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Someone more technically aware than me can probably put us straight on this, but isn't one cause of disc damage leaving the pads applied to discs still hot from a recent stop? That stops the heat from dissipating evenly and causes the discs to distort. If this is what the C-Max's automatic parking brake does, erm, automatically, could that be causing the problem here? Or is it likely to be the reverse - corrosion because the rear brakes don't get enough to do?
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"but isn't one cause of disc damage leaving the pads applied to discs still hot from a recent stop? "
No, an old wive's tale.
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Amazing what those old wives find to talk about, isn't it? }:---)
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I drive a C-Max Zetec - Three and half year old 48,000 miles - Manual parking break - One new set of pads to date at 36,000 mile service
2,5. Discs fine at at last service 3 months back.
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I assume you are a heavy brake user - i.e. lots of town driving. I've done 73,00 in my Saab on original pads & discs - and the recent service says there's still plenty life left.
SWMBO's Honda has done 60,00 on originals - and hers is an auto box. Recent brake check (by Kwik-Fit who usualy do their best to sell you anything!) said at least another 30,000 left on the basis of current driving style.
Maybe its because we live in the country, and being in our fifties have lost the urge to fly away from traffic lights only to stamp on the brakes at the next corner.
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I've read on other forums that the auto-parking brake wears the rear discs pretty quickly.
It's interesting that Ford have ditched the auto-parking brake on their new model C-Max...
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I recently replaced the Volvo's front discs at 360,000 miles when they reached the recommended limit. The rears are still just OK at 380,000 miles, but due for replacement very soon. The Triumph's are still OK after 43 years and 213,000 miles.
It's the way you drive.
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Cliff, do the front and rear of your Volvo go their separate ways? And the rear takes a slightly longer route?
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Cliff do the front and rear of your Volvo go their separate ways? And the rear takes a slightly longer route?
Sorry, not with you. There's no particular reason why front and rears should wear at the same rate. In fact, in my case they do seem to, roughly. I assume that the fronts make more braking effort, but this is mostly compensated for by having larger pads. All pads, front and rear, last about 50,000 miles.
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my cmax 2.0 tdci needed new discs and pads at 23k and now my note 1.6se auto needs new discs and pads at 20k, i think i brake too hard and too late so wear is more.
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Automatic cars will always be harder on brakes because there's no engine braking. I suspect the same is true to a lesser extent with diesels compared to petrols.
A friend used to own a Scorpio 24v Cosworth which would need new pads at every (9k) service. Over 200 bhp, a lot of weight, and no engine braking.
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04 Grand Scenic 1.9 dCi Dynamique
00 Mondeo 1.8TD LX
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Autos do have engine braking if you drive them properly, but from my experience very few auto drivers know what lock up is actually for. They leave it in D down 1 in 4 hills with brakes lights shining and brake components smoking.
My last A3 had very little brake wear after 34,000 and this was a DSG auto. A colleague with an S type auto complains that every time he has a service it needs new pads. He is a 'put it in D and forget' driver.
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SWMBO's Trajet has new discs and pads on the front at 18,000 miles. The car was driven a lot by her mother between 10,000 and 18,000 who is completely unsympathetic to cars and every car she has, she has a problem with - or rather the car has a problem with her.
From 18,000 to 30,000 miles it needed new front pads again and new rear pads, but not discs.
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Might be wrong -
I thought brakes on c-max are designed to be more orientated in terms of heavier use on the rear due to altered weight distribution in comparison to its top lighter cousin the focus. So if you are concerned about the rear brakes requiring attention at 20K rather than the front set perhaps that is a fair explanation? Or could it just be that the electronic parking break is as desperately screwed a concept on the c-max (rarely hear anything good about it).
My auto (CVT) c-max offers automatic engine braking just have to go down a hill with my foot off the accelerator and it automatically drops the ratio to increase compression braking.
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My Focus 2.0tdci is shortly to have its 25k service and it will need new front pads and discs. As was said by bigbirdy I'm well aware it's because of the way I drive. Luckily though I don't have to pay for them so it doesn't matter!
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Thanks for all the replies chaps.
Not sure what to make of it all really. I don't think the brakes weren't releasing fully. Since they've been replaced it is rolling down hill from standstill more easily.
At least I'll know if characterics change now and to act.
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Really odd. Our 2005 C-Max 2.0TDci Ghia has the same set up as yours (electric hand brake) has over 30,000 miles and brakes are fine.
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Surely, the wear on brake pads depends on the nature of the driving, as has been mentioned, but not as often as I thought it may have been i.e. Lots of motorway driving means less brake per mile.
I have, just this weekend coincidentally, had to change my front pads and discs for the first time, on a C5, at 71k. (although the off side was down to the metal apparently - whoops). The rear was done at the 60k service, again, for the first time.
Checking my previous records (sad like that), this is fairly consistent with the Toledo I had previously, which were only changed once (at 73k, front and back) during the 135k miles that I owned it.
Mainly motorway driving.
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So much for Fords being cheap to run!!
£200+ for rear brake pads and discs?!?!?!?!?!?
I paid £150 for fronts from Hyundai main dealer, and I thought that was expensive.
£200 is outrageous.
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And FWIW, the rears were original at 67,000 miles when the car met its unfortunate end...
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Read HJ's CAR BY CAR breakdown - it mentions accellerated rear brake wear there. Something to do with bias being set more to use rear braking due to increased height?...
That said, our 2.0TDCi c-max was sold at 3 years/30,000 miles and there was still plenty of meat on the rear pads and the discs were hardly worn at all. (ditto front). And it was driven fairly hard.
EPB shouldn't make any difference unless it's badly adjusted, as it only applied when the wheels are stopped. Wear can only occur through friction, and a brake pad against a static disc can't cause any friction! That said, EPB are rubbish and notorious for malfunctioning - hence why Ford have ditched them.
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>>due to increased height?...
Well, that's not true (HJ sometimes gets it wrong) - increased height means more weight transfer under braking, hence less rear brake effort.
Number_Cruncher
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My Picasso is still on the original brakes at 66K+, no sign they need replacing anytime soon.
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A lot will also depend on you wheels imo.
Alloy wheels with few spokes can expose disks to more rain and dirt.. especially when parked. Fine film of rust evry night/wiped clean next morning.
And frequent washing of wheels will do the same thing .. also hosing under vehicles.. Accelerates rust on rims/pitting of surfaces...
Been there done it..
And heavy and late breaking will not help.
When I was responsible for company cars, it was pretty obvious who would cost the most tp keep on the road... the same people who drove fastest/got most points/had most accidents also cost most to run.
And they had all one common trait: they could not care less about the costs of what they did... :-(
madf
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"a brake pad against a static disc can't cause any friction!"
Although it will not cause wear, isn't friction the reason the EPB or otherwise actually work? Surely friction is what makes the handbrake, electronic or otherwise function. Or am I being dim? Agree this will not cause wear though.
New rear breaks in 20k (or even fronts for that matter) seems high to me.
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>>due to increased height?... Well that's not true (HJ sometimes gets it wrong) - increased height means more weight transfer under braking hence less rear brake effort.
WRONG.
By altering the bias towards the rear (which is what causes increased wear), you help to avoid weight transfer under braking.
Put it another way.... in a conventional car, if you pull the handbrake on slowly whilst driving, what happens? The rear of the car squats down as the weight is "pulled" back.
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>>WRONG.
No, that's NOT weight transfer. People get very confused about this, you aren't alone!
>>in a conventional car, if you pull the handbrake on slowly whilst driving, what happens?
That's the suspension twisting and reacting to the torque applied at the rear brakes, and is part of the anti-dive geometry. Weight is still being transferred to the front.
It doesn't matter that the brake force comes from the front brakes or the rear brakes. The physics of the situation is that the brake force is applied to the vehicle at ground level - by the tyre contact patches, and the vehicle has a c of g above ground level, there is therefore a pitching moment, which is given by the height of the c of g multiplied by the total braking force.
Whenever you decelerate a car, you get weight transfer to the front of the car. This is independant of what the suspension does - it would still happen if your suspension was rock solid. The amount of weight transfer depends only on the height of the centre of gravity, and the wheelbase.
Now, you can design the suspension to react in different ways to braking forces, to change the attitude of the vehicle under braking, but this suspension movement does not alter the amount of load which is transferred. Remember, weight transfer is what you would see if you had weighing scales under the tyre contacts, it isn't necessarily a movement of the suspension, which can be caused by braking toque on, say, a trailing arm.
Number_Cruncher
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Excellent analysis NC, as usual.
To return more to the topic, I was wondering why the rear pads on my Skoda Superb were on the wear limit at 20k miles, whilst the fronts (fitted with wear indicators) were hardly worn.
The Superb (Passat B5.5) is an ancient design. I suspect that before the introduction of ABS, pressure limiting valves possibly controlled by ride height were fitted to the rear brakes. Rear lock-up is to be avoided at all costs and can occur on a lightly loaded vehicle, even with rear calipers fitted with small operating pistons.
With the introduction of ABS on later vehicles, lock-up cannot occur but the brakes remained unchanged. The effect of this is to increase the average proportion of work done by the rear brakes, especially if ride-height correction is used as on many old VAG vehicles. So, the brakes actually work better because the rears can operate at full pressure nearly all the time, but the downside of course is increased wear.
The pad warning system on the B5.5 is therefore a farce - I reckon my front pads will outlast 3 sets of rears.
I wonder if this change to ABS without other more fundamental changes to the system has resulted in increased rear brake wear generally on later vehicles irrespective of manufacture?
659.
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I should have pointed out, of course, that the rear pressure limiting valves were deleted on vehicles with ABS.
659.
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I wonder if this change to ABS without other more fundamental changes to the system has resulted in increased rear brake wear generally on later vehicles irrespective of manufacture?
I really don't think so. ABS has been out for a good many years now and my experience is that rear pads still last 2+ times as long as front pads.
Don't forget that the brake system engineers will design the front and rear brakes to have a particular pressure-torque relationship. For a given system pressure the rear brakes will be designed to apply a much lower braking torque than the front brakes. When you drive an ABS car the ABS is not continually cutting to stop rear wheel lock. In fact in my experience its the fronts that usually try to lock first.
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I nearly said: From OP's question and HJ's info in the CBCB .... and then realised to many acronyms for new people so.... start again.
From the original posters questions and Honest John's info in the Car-by-Car Breakdown, it would seem the C-MAX wears out rear brakes quicker than one would expect. Regardless of why it seems they do.
So anyone buying ought to factor this in to running costs I guess. Not good in my opinion.
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My 2004 1.8 Zetec does need rear brake pads. Any fitting tips appreciated? Can the pistons be pushed back or do they turn? Car is with a standard handbrake.
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Rear disc and pad wear can happen much quicker than expected because discs rust when they're wet.
Rust is very abrasive so wears the pads, and it also corrodes the discs. There's little braking force applied to the rear of most cars, so unless you're regularly braking hard then you're not going to clear the rust off and the pits in the disc will continue to grow. Brake harder more often to clear the rust off them and the rear pads and discs will last much longer. You will, however, increase the wear rates on the front discs. There's no such thing as a free lunch!
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I read often, only post occasionally
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