My car's brakes are badly rusted, can I get this fixed or do they need replacing?

I left my Volkswagen Jetta at a garage to be serviced and MOT'd. It's done 29,000 miles. They've come back saying, "there is 7mm remaining on front brake pads and discs badly rusted on inner surfaces, requires disks and pads" at a total cost of £383. Do you feel that some remedial work could be done for this, and must this be done for the MOT?

Asked on 9 July 2021 by James Briggs

Answered by Dan Powell

I imagine the rust has been caused by the car being parked up for long periods outside during the pandemic-related lockdowns. It may be possible for a garage to scrub the rust off the disc with cleaner and steel wool, but it will very much depend on the level of corrosion. It's probable the rust has eaten into the metal and pitted the surface, which means the disc will chew up the pads. If the rust is really bad then the car will fail the MoT because the tester will deem it likely to fail.

Tags: rust mot

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