Hello Everyone,

I have a 3.5 year old 500L that has done 4000 miles and am being told I need to have the discs and pads replaced!! I do not have a heavy right foot as I use the gears to primarily slow down. Surely this cannot be right can you help please?

I believe the components used may not have been of the highest quality and therefore the manufacturer Fiat has some responsibility in the matter?

As brakes are considered a wear & tear item, you'll get nothing from Fiat.

"need replacing" is a bit vague. We need to know why. A proper description from the garage of the reason they are recommending the replacement.

It is likely that you are a victim of your driving style. Catch 22, if you use the brakes a lot, they wear out. If you don't use them, the discs get rusty, the corrosion gets deep, it tears the pads up, so the discs have heavy wear and corrosion due to rust, the pads are worn out because they have to keep grinding the rust off. We should never replace discs without new pads anyway.

Using the brakes often but lightly makes them last longest. It reduces wear on the gearbox too. (Brakes are a lot cheaper than gearboxes)

Here's a phrase for you, and everyone else out there, "gears to go, brakes to slow". Brake early and gently, using the brake lights to warn following traffic, leave the gear engaged, change only when you know which one you need next, missing out any in between. Reduces effort and wear, keeps the car more stable. This technique will often result in a 5th to 1st change on arrival at a junction. Some engines will not tolerate that, fighting early, so 5th - 3rd, then 3rd - 1st, might be necessary. Each situation will be different.

Using gears to slow down is useful in ice and snow, otherwise not necessary. So why were most people taught it? A bit of history. Until we invented motor vehicles, the horse was both the power and the brakes. A bit of leather on a block of wood, pressed against a wooden wheel was fine for parking a carriage, not much use on a motor car. Although by then we already had brakes on trains, car brakes were rather rubbish until at least the late thirties. Using them down long hills would often cause fade before the bottom. By 1950 we had reasonable brakes, and they have been getting better ever since. The 'system of car control' advocated by Roadcraft, the police drivers' manual, and the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists, https://www.iamroadsmart.com/) have been recommending 'gears to go, brakes to slow' since the fifties. Sadly, the DVSA only caught on to this around 1997 and many instructors still teach gears to slow.

Let us know the diagnosis.

I have the auto and my disks are changed about 25k I'm now on my 3rd set disks!!!

This is strange. My nose heavy 1.6 diesel has 23k km (15k miles) on the clock and no noticeable wear on the break discs ... (and I use it for city driving most of the time)

1.6 multi jet 38k out of the first set.