>>should not the wheels be taken off during one of its 3 main dealer services
Not necessarily - it depends if the brakes can be inspected without removing the wheel.
Check out the precise wording of the official Ford service schedule - if it states remove wheels, then they should be taken off, if it only says inspect the brakes, then it's not strictly necessary to remove the wheels.
Pad wear and disc wear can easily be assessed through the gaps in the alloy wheel [or holes in a steel wheel], and any binding is obvious. If fitted, rear drum brakes can be checked for wear via a rubber bung in the back plate.
I don't think you are a million miles out with your wheel bolt torque, but I don't know the precise figure. What's much more important than the ultimate precision in torque figure is to ensure that you re-check them after a short while - say 50 miles or so.
The MOT tester is not allowed to remove *anything*, not even a wheel trim, not even to pull up the corner of some carpetting or interior trim - the car must be inspected as presented.
|
I recall a comment many years ago from a Ford Service manager, that the wheels on an Escort don't come off until 36,000.
With changed service intervals; I can't see that it's likely to have got shorter. Pads and linings can be checked visually.
Alloys want coming off on all cars before their first winter and the hubs Copasliping.
|
Thanks for replies. As I say it was more of a release. I've been on the spanners on a DIY basis for years. Rally car builds and so on.
Its just my expectations of a service are that the wheels come off, hubs and calipers stripped, cleaned, inspected and coppersliped as necessary - all preventative maintenance.
I think my expectations are too high.
Only go to main dealer for that magical stamp in the book. Plus last time for some warranty work - those leaking jets filling the spark plug holes with water and a faulty bonnet catch.
MOT done at local independent, and they are on the ball! Well they are with me anyway, must know about my day job.
|
Re: torque settings. I can't guarantee the accuracy of the information, other than when I looked up the values for my Vectra-C and my Dad's Astra-G, they were correct.
www.etyres.co.uk/car-makers
Just click on your make of car and off you go.
|
|
If you look at my thread about tyres for my Outback, you can see the effect of applying copper grease or not!
|
Fullchat,
I have just looked at the service schedules for the Focus 11 and for a standard 1.8 petrol version the wheels should have been removed to check disk health on its 2year / 25,000 mile service
If you give me your exact vehicle spec I can check your specific model
Carse
|
You don't actually KNOW whether or not they've been off.
|
Carse
The vehicle is a 2005 1.6 petrol Focus II Climate saloon.
Mapmaker
The 2 year service was just over a year ago so I cannot comment as to whether the wheels were removed then. The last service was 4 weeks ago and judging by the amount of force required to remove them they were not taken off at that time.
|
|
Go to www.etis.ford.com and you can find out for yourself what should be done on any Ford service and print out a check sheet.
|
A friend has jts has his Golf serviced at a main dealer - 45,000 miles covered. He had an advisory about the rear pads. Rather than pay silly main dealer rates he took it to his local guy for new rear pads.
They were changed today, but the fitter commented how difficult it was to get the wheels off and it was obvious the dealer never removed them during the service, something he thought should be done.
|
Don't people rotate wheels from front to back any more to even up on tyre wear caused by FWD and power steering?
|
Don't mind me asking, but doesn't anyone whip the wheels off themselves, and put a bit of coppaslip around, i did withina week of getting our new motor, couldn't bear the thought of clean alloy corroding onto hub.
Apart from anything else, i like to know how tight my wheel nuts are, don't like finding out on a wet and dark motorway.
Suppose i'll be chastised, but i also remove the rear brake drum to give a little wipe of coppaslip where the hub always corrodes to the drum.
If the maker cannot be bothered to put some grease or stuff about, why does anyone think a main dealer would bother.
Incidentally, shouldn't a brake inspection include removing pads and drums to properly inspect and clean the parts, i know my merc indy does this, how are you supposed to see round the corner of the wheel and check for loose or corroded brake backing plates.
|
>>Incidentally, shouldn't a brake inspection include removing pads and drums
It depends.
As part of a small service (in a dealer) the inspection will be made with a small mirror and through the holes in the wheel, and will not be charged extra to the service.
In general, if you want a dealer to take the wheels and drums off, you'll be paying for an extra item on the invoice. While I worked in a Vauxhall garage, this was 0.5 hours for strip, clean, lube and adjust the rear drum brakes.
If I understand you correctly, if by backing plates you mean the anti-squeal shims these are just an NVH issue, not safety critical - if there's a problem here, you'll hear it on the thrash round the block, oops, sorry, road test!
Independents will tend to take the wheels and drums off for at least two reasons;
1) the cars they work on are older, and are much more likely to be faulty. I wouldn't dream of taking the rear drums off a modern Vauxhall with less than 50k on the clock - it's a pointless excercise, because there's generally nothing to see.
2) independent garages tend to be set up by those who are more enthusiastic and keen, and are much more likely to be of the school of thought that doing more work is providing a better service (not always true IMO!)
There's only one danger of copperslipping every interface, and that's that the grease is more likely to attract and retain particles of general environmental carp, dust, and debris which will compress and embed. As there's only a few handfuls of microns (elastic) stretch in the wheel bolts, if this carp does compress or embed, then you'll lose lots of wheel nut tensile load. This means that re-torquing after disturbing any of these interfaces is even more important than ever. BTW, I do use copperslip in a similar way, because I think the benefits do outweigh the problems, and a few minutes with a torque wrench mitigates the risk.
|
If I understand you correctly if by backing plates you mean the anti-squeal shims
No, sorry NC i meant the steel backing of the pad itself, i've bought cars in the past (one merc 124 had this) where the backing plate was so corroded it had actually parted company with the pad material.
As we've discussed before, very few people wash salt off the underside, and supposing a fleet/rental car gets stood down in March and sits in compound until November, and thats very normal, i can just imagine the state of the braking system when its had 6 months of high alkaline corrosion.
Glad you're a coppaslipper, well worth it when you remove a back wheel and just pull the drum by finger pressure to remove.
My merc indy services many new cars as well, and i know they get a strip and check, he's very old school, and nowt wrong with that.
|
>>Suppose I'll be chastised, but I also remove the rear brake drum to give a little wipe of coppaslip where the hub always corrodes to the drum.
>>
While I am doing the Coppaslip task I also rub down the drums and give them a couple of coats of Black Hammerite.
I do not indulge in polishing bodywork ( a bucket of soapy water every few weeks is fine) but seeing rusty drums through nice alloy wheels is a no no in my household. :-)
|
Tackled the back wheels tonight. Again welded on. Some serious persuasion with a block of wood and a lump hammer did the trick. Cleaned and copperslipped. Job done.
Had the car sustained a puncture there is no way it could have been sorted at the side of the road. It would have been an expensive callout or AA / RAC intervention, to which I do not suscribe.
All for the sake of lack of expected basic servicing. In future I may well go down the preventative route if I push the boat out with a new vehicle.
|
I can see some sense in the wheels not coming off in the first year or two but after that I would hope the inspection is more thorough.
I recently bought a Mondeo 2000 with 75,000 miles and main dealer service history. The rear drum pistons and shoes had been replaced when a leak was spotted during an MOT.
I decided to check the front calipers myself and had the same issues getting the alloys off and it looked like they were only taken off to replace the discs at 60,000 miles.
Following a near miss by the wife I got a full set of ABS parts from a brakers and fitted them. I put on copperslip as I went. Brake balance now vastly better so I am not sure the drums were that good at all (I did not check as I had complete knuckles for the discs).
|
While I am doing the Coppaslip task I also rub down the drums and give them a couple of coats of Black Hammerite.
Me too, havent had to do the drums on the hilux yet, they were well painted at manfacture ( i do give them a lick with the sponge through the wheels when i wash the motor), but front and rear calipers on the merc are black hammerite too.
I dare say the hilux calipers will be going black when the warranty is out.
We are an eccentric bunch in the BR
|
|
