Great, Much obliged to you all I am.
I'll ask J&J to call any or all of them
I'll ask J&J to call any or all of them
General 4x4 squealing rear brakes
- Thread starter 205dan
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General 4x4 squealing rear brakes
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That's the difference between looking after your customer and looking after your own immediate interests isn't it. I just don't understand why some dealers imagine the latter is good business sense because surely you'd repeat business.
Hi all!
Had the squeal and took my 4x4 in to Fiat dealers who couldn't find a problem about 3 months ago. Had a routine service yesterday and was told both rear brakes 'breaking away and discs discoloured due to overheating. Requires new pads and disks' They serviced the car last year with no issues found.
Now my car is 3 years old, only 22k miles and I am VERY light on the brake pedal so I am very confused as to what would have caused this much damage... I am presuming the 2 issues (first the squeal and now the damage) are related... what do people suggest? Fiat customer service? back to the Fiat dealer? I don't want to pay the hundreds of pounds just for the same thing to happen...
All comments gratefully received
Had the squeal and took my 4x4 in to Fiat dealers who couldn't find a problem about 3 months ago. Had a routine service yesterday and was told both rear brakes 'breaking away and discs discoloured due to overheating. Requires new pads and disks' They serviced the car last year with no issues found.
Now my car is 3 years old, only 22k miles and I am VERY light on the brake pedal so I am very confused as to what would have caused this much damage... I am presuming the 2 issues (first the squeal and now the damage) are related... what do people suggest? Fiat customer service? back to the Fiat dealer? I don't want to pay the hundreds of pounds just for the same thing to happen...
All comments gratefully received
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This is possibly (probably?) unrelated to your problem, but being 'very light' on the brakes is not necessarily a good thing. By lightly brushing the pads against the discs, you can build up a glaze on the pads resulting in lowered brake performance because the braking system is designed to work with brake pad material, not that glaze. This is why old school mechanics will pull out a set of brake pads and rub them on concrete, to remove that glaze. Symptoms include squealing and overheating.
You don't have to be hard on your brakes, just use them hard enough to stop or slow down and avoid 'riding' them (ie, keeping your foot lightly on the brakes when going down hill, etc). Standard brakes should be designed to be used this way however, any variation, either much harder or continuously lighter, could result in problems.
But as I said originally, this may be unrelated to your problem. Getting a duff set of pads would have the same effect. In any case, get the things fixed - solid objects slow you down faster but brakes are easier on the paintwork.
Thanks for the reply!
By 'light' I mean that I slow by gear-shifting, I don't speed to corners and slam on the brakes etc... I am a smooth driver... I still can't see how my pads and drums could have suffered so much damage. Doesn't it sound like that I had been driving with the brakes stuck on?
By 'light' I mean that I slow by gear-shifting, I don't speed to corners and slam on the brakes etc... I am a smooth driver... I still can't see how my pads and drums could have suffered so much damage. Doesn't it sound like that I had been driving with the brakes stuck on?
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I confess I can't see where the damage has come from either. Maybe you were just unlucky with muck on the roads (we don't have to deal with ice, slush and salted roads here so I don't understand the ramifications of that).
Personally, I do use the brakes to slow the car on the grounds that brake pads are cheaper than engines. Having said that, the TwinAir's engine braking is so good that approaching a corner or roundabout and shifting down is often all that's needed. It's all a balancing act and that varies on how I'm driving at the time and yes, I do give my little Panda a hard time sometimes :devil: (she loves it
)babbo_umbro
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I confess I can't see where the damage has come from either. Maybe you were just unlucky with muck on the roads (we don't have to deal with ice, slush and salted roads here so I don't understand the ramifications of that).
Personally, I do use the brakes to slow the car on the grounds that brake pads are cheaper than engines. Having said that, the TwinAir's engine braking is so good that approaching a corner or roundabout and shifting down is often all that's needed. It's all a balancing act and that varies on how I'm driving at the time and yes, I do give my little Panda a hard time sometimes :devil: (she loves it
Hmm - I've always rated the TA's engine braking as weak - because - I understand - it has no throttle as such so no vacuum behind it on the overrun. Or is that wrong?
Suki, can you post a pic of your disks?
What do they mean "breaking away"?
I would have thought the only way to overheat your rear disks would be to drive with your parking brake on, track days accepted.
What do they mean "breaking away"?
I would have thought the only way to overheat your rear disks would be to drive with your parking brake on, track days accepted.
Deeyup, my thoughts exactly! I use to park in the (flat) garage with the hand brake on...and when I reversed out the car always seemed initially reluctant as though the hand brake was sticking... and then I had the squeal.. So I took it to the dealers and explained the problem but they said nothing was wrong...
I stopped using the hand brake to park the car...I phoned the dealers yesterday and even thought she admitted they had seem the car in August she said it was all my driving style (fume... I have been driving over 30 years and never had a problem...) and it was just 'wear and tear' on the brakes... by the way the car is JUST out of warranty.... I can't believe if it was all 'wear and tear ' that they didn't see some sign at last years service... as for the August visit... did they actually look? (yes the car would have been still under warranty at that point...) as the squeal had gone I didn't pursue the matter...
I stopped using the hand brake to park the car...I phoned the dealers yesterday and even thought she admitted they had seem the car in August she said it was all my driving style (fume... I have been driving over 30 years and never had a problem...) and it was just 'wear and tear' on the brakes... by the way the car is JUST out of warranty.... I can't believe if it was all 'wear and tear ' that they didn't see some sign at last years service... as for the August visit... did they actually look? (yes the car would have been still under warranty at that point...) as the squeal had gone I didn't pursue the matter...
No, just a snap shot through the gap in the wheel.
That blaming it on your driving style sounds like a load of old tosh to me.
We all know that the front brakes do the lions share of braking. Surely if your driving style was extremely heavy on brakes the fronts would wear a damn sight faster than the rears!
That blaming it on your driving style sounds like a load of old tosh to me.
We all know that the front brakes do the lions share of braking. Surely if your driving style was extremely heavy on brakes the fronts would wear a damn sight faster than the rears!
I now have a case with Fiat. I had to give them explicit consent to contact my dealer though......
babbo_umbro
Established member
Interesting - my 4x4 TA is always garaged unless I'm actually driving it, and it sits with the handbrake off. I've never suffered the noisy rear brake syndrome - and the same was true of my 100HP. My car's booked in for its three-year service (36,000 miles) and first MoT in March so I'm wondering if I should encourage (invent?) the rear brake issue so that it can be rectified - if you see what I mean.
Sorry having terrible internet probs so cannot upload photos but... am taking the car to a local garage on the 15th... I trust this guy so he will give me the low down on the situation... he was telling me some horror stories about Dealers and quotas...
Considering how much this issue seems to have to do with the parking brake, it has occurred to me that the handbrake cable tension probably has a set value determined by the factory that probably works like a charm when new, but fails to fully release the rear calipers when it becomes slightly worn. Thus, those of us who use the handbrake experience glazing on the pads and discs because we're essentially driving around with minimal but constant contact between the two surfaces. The whole issue may be down to slackening the handbrake cable just a bit, which services most likely won't do, and will probably void the warranties of those of us who still have one.
Mines been done today. Fingers crossed...... The only downside was the dacia sandero courtesy car. Gutless and awful
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I thought James May liked the Dacia Sandero... oh, wait, that probably confirms what you said
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I thought James May liked the Dacia Sandero... oh, wait, that probably confirms what you said
You do know that he used to own a 2006 Fiat Panda 1.2 Eleganza, lol?
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I didn't. It doesn't surprise me, he seems to like the common man's cars as well as the expensive stuff.
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I remember reading his monthly article in Top Gear mag: he'd originally intended to buy the base model, but the salesman managed to talk him into the top of the range model instead, lol!
Sadly though, he traded it in for a hideous bmw i3 back in 2014. 
