When braking hard from 80+ (on a private road of course) almost to a stop the rear feels like it wants to steer itself from left to right and doesn't give me confidence. It stops in a straight line though and it doesn't require steering input but I can feel the rear about to move out of shape.

When I had the rear pads changed around 5k miles ago, the pistons of the rear calipers were greased and pushed in, one might have been sticky IIRC.

The car passed its MOT fine though and no imbalance was reported on the brakes but maybe the sticky caliper is only marginal hence the problem appears at higher speeds?

I wonder whether this happens due to a worn front shock and the combination of the short wheelbase, has anyone else experienced this?

It happened with the OEM shocks and also after fitting Konis at the rear. I have yet to fit the front Konis.

I've used some Bendix rear pads, maybe these don't provide enough friction and the car feels imbalanced due to this?

Or is there a rear brake regulator that needs changing?

It's a 100HP.

Braking hard will transfer weight to the front massively, it could be that your front dampers need replacing, but try reading ahead and not getting sucked in to hard braking. Wears them out early too!

ExBluebird said:

Braking hard will transfer weight to the front massively, it could be that your front dampers need replacing, but try reading ahead and not getting sucked in to hard braking. Wears them out early too!

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That's what I was thinking.
It's not something I do for fun regularly but I want to be sure that in case of an emergency stop the car will stop in a straight line.

Differing shocks and pads front to rear, a possible sticking calliper - sounds like a recipe for problems.
How are the tyres front to rear? Do you have good tread on the rears? Tyres with more wear on rear than on front are also a potential stability problem.
That said, the Panda is a light, short wheelbase car, which is less than ideal for high speed stability.

The tyres are almost new with good thread (all 4 done 5k miles or so), I am going to swap front to rears this weekend.

It did it when it was on OEM shocks allround too.

Is there a way to detect a sticky caliper and how to cure it?

None of the rear discs gets hot, if a caliper was ticky one of the discs would get hotter, no?

I am not conviced on the rear Bendix pads either.

So has noone tried braking hard to a stop from 80+ or are their cars stable without having a twitchy rear end?

Could worn front wishbone bushes or rear axle bushes cause the instability?

How easy are these bushes to change?

https://www.shop4parts.co.uk/?name=store&op=Details&ProdID=13528&sku=198093

https://www.shop4parts.co.uk/?name=store&op=Details&ProdID=4624&sku=73320

My old Grande Punto used to feel twitchy on the back breaking, however the worst I have experienced is Vauxhall Corsas current shape, the rear goes all light and twitchy and you can feel the ABS kicking in.

It is fairly normal as mentioned on shorter wheel base cars.

OK, good to know, if it's a characteristic of the car I have to learn to live with it I suppose.

Btw, I have now changed the front shocks as well so all fours are Koni yellows.

fpan said:

OK, good to know, if it's a characteristic of the car I have to learn to live with it I suppose.

Btw, I have now changed the front shocks as well so all fours are Koni yellows.

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We'll await you cranking out the GoPro on your private road and reporting back then.


You should try doing the same on a bike - now that does sht you up. You'd think the Panda's reaction was a birthday present.

Mine does have a sticking rear caliper, but on your private road, the toll is in the post, it's fine. You only got up to 80kph? LoL