could anybody give me an idea please of how to remove the rear brake pads on my Panda Cross.

I would like to inspect them as they seem to just be leaving grooves in the disks ? I have this both sides with the rears being the worst

car has just over 6k on it

There are two bolts on the back of the caliper. Removing the bottom one allows the caliper to swing up and round on the other. Once out of the way, the pads are easy to take out.


However, note that will need a caliper wind-back tool in order to swing the unit back together, and really should use a new bolt on refitting.


You might be better off paying a local tyre and brake depot to take a look.

After 6k miles? Should be a warranty issue, surely, as you shouldn't be having brake issues at that mileage.

gar074 said:

After 6k miles? Should be a warranty issue, surely, as you shouldn't be having brake issues at that mileage.

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good point... didn't spot such low mileage

maybe just me being a bit OCD - what do you think ?





these are the two rears

Hard to tell from those photos. Just looked at mine (after 3 years and 36k miles) and my rear discs are more uneven/scored than the fronts, presumably because they do less work. It sailed through its MOT with no advisories in April, so I'm not worrying about them for the moment. Has yours been standing around a lot? That kind of scoring is more likely to result from corrosion on the face of the disc than anything wrong with the pads (the pads being softer than the disc).

No standing around - Panda gets used daily although only small distances 12 miles

have looked at all cars in the car park and all have clean disk surfaces front and back

have no problem with the braking power - just with them looking bad with such a low mileage on them

these are the fronts

My solution would be, give it a proper Italian road test (lots of heavy braking) and then check them again.

gar074 said:

My solution would be, give it a proper Italian road test (lots of heavy braking) and then check them again.

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I was just about to type EXACTLY that, before I scrolled down to see your post.....

So yes, I wholeheartedly agree - drive it like you stole it for a good few miles and I suspect things will improve. 6k is not enough to wear the pads out and those marks on the discs are likely from surface corrosion that is not being worn away - 12 gentle miles a day is not a sufficiently worthy workout for them.

Surface corrosion, no big deal. Try to finish the journey with them dry and hot to drive off the moisture. PS you don't wash the wheels too regular and soak the discs? Then you should only get very light and even oxide coating on a rare time. At 6K you have only just bedded them in? I am still on original front pads and discs at 53K