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I will admit right off the bat that I am wrong.
Thursday, I got a call from a guy who said he had problems with his front brakes. I went to check it out. I got into the job and I could not remove the rotors because of the Rotor Screws. They got rounded off and I didn’t have the tools to handle it.
The guy said he can’t afford to tow the vehicle because he does not have the money. He already bought the pads and rotors. I put on the new pads serviced the system as best as I could. Cleaned up the shims, applied anti-seize to the necessary parts of the system. I also torqued everything down to spec. I observed no leaks in the system and the parking brake was in order.
I could not sleep the entire night. I saw the guy first thing in the morning and warned him of the danger of the vehicle that he is driving. He seemed concerned and grateful, I spoke to him to his face at work. I let him know that I can be back at 5pm when he is done to take him to a garage that can solve the rest of the problem.
I get to his workplace at 4:30pm so when he is done we can go right away. I wait from 4:30pm – 5:30pm No call from him. He has my number. In fact he was no where to be found. Please let me know what you think about this who situation ?
How dangerous is this situation ?
The first picture is an example of the wear on the right side rotor and the second picture is an example of the passenger side rotor.
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First off make sure and try to contact the customer. always remember that the customer is what/who puts food on the table. there are several tricks for removing those pesky screws. the “double hammer ” trick that eric has shown works well. I usually use an impact driver with a really good bit to take them off. if they are so rounded that no bit will grab then you will need a small and very sharp chisel to ” persuade ” it loose. as for DANGER – The really chewed rotor will cause abnormal pad wear and possible pulling to that side during braking. the other rotor might cause pulsation if it is uneven. or possibly get “more hot ” than normal due to being thin. I would rectify the situation as soon as possible ( make sure the customer knows about the scenarios I mentioned regarding pulling and brake pulsation.
From going by the just the images I wouldn’t exactly call the situation fatal since he will be able to brake. But his braking distance etc would most likely suffer from the uneven surface, and the discs might not be able to dissipate heat very well and thus could lead to warped discs.
I would clearly recommend getting the discs taken off and replaced ASAP.
If it was my customer I would have called him if he hadn’t shown up at around 5:15, but could you see if his car was there or not?.
But my last car had rather dodgy brakes, that got fixed and then another part broke and I just said to hell with it, well until my mechanic friend showed me exactly what I had been doing at which point I realised what I had been doing could potentially have been deadly for me or someone else.
Worse care scenario and he continues to drive like this, do you think he could be injured and injure others.
What also concerns me is that this guy left way before I got there ? I wonder if my talk scared him and he ran to a shop to get it taken care of it. Usually people don’t leave work so early unless something is up. Don’t you think ?
[quote=”drthrift035″ post=68387]Worse care scenario and he continues to drive like this, do you think he could be injured and injure others.[/quote]
Worst case?
Injure himself = Yes
Injure Others = YesWorst case he won’t realise just how bad his brakes are and then he will try to pull an emergency stop that might have worked if his brakes had been in 100% working order. But that doesn’t work in his case and god knows what might happen then.
You know what. At that point I have no sympathy for him because he is a fool. If you are given such a warning and you do nothing about it you deserve what you get. I think that he will get it taken care of. He already has the rotors I saw them when I first met the guy.
Sadly you can’t fix stupid. Either A: You scared him and he drove it to the shop to get it fixed ASAP, B: He is a fool and simply “ran” in order to not having to face you and the potential bill of having it fixed.
If A then he is redeemable, if B then he is without redemption
[quote=”TehTDK” post=68397]Sadly you can’t fix stupid. Either A: You scared him and he drove it to the shop to get it fixed ASAP, B: He is a fool and simply “ran” in order to not having to face you and the potential bill of having it fixed.
If A then he is redeemable, if B then he is without redemption[/quote]
Well said. Great break down. It’s either A or B. Thank you so much for your support. Tonight I can sleep way better with a more through understanding of what has happened. In addition, how I can protect myself in the future.
There is a way to skim the disks flat again depending how much metal there is left. You don’t want to make the disk too thin! If you have access to a lathe you can re-machine them.
Don’t have a lathe? If you are careful, you can use an angle grinder clamped on a bar on top of a heavy axle stand. run the car in first gear taking off the ridges and smoothing out evenly. You are effectively turning the car into a Lathe.
Jane 😉
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