Well, after 25,000 miles the front discs and pads on my 4x4 were well worn, so I decided to replace them. Now, I've fitted lots of these items before and thought the task would be easy, especially on a 2.5 year old car. Unfortunately the bolts retaining the discs on the hub were completely seized and, being made of quite soft metal, one on each side sheared off. I had used plenty of easing oil but couldn't get to the back of the hub to spray it as the 4wd mechanism prevents the hub turning if the other wheels are on the ground, even in neutral.
It's not the end of the world, these bolts are only there to locate the disc when the wheel is removed and the roadwheel bolts do all the work when everything is assembled. It's just a pain that, when I get hold of some new bolts, I'll have to take things apart again to drill out the sheared off bolts.
I was amazed at how corroded everything was. The discs were at the wear limit and in quite a sorry state, I'll feel much safer about the braking now the work's been done. I guess some of the corrosion is my fault as the car has been taken off road, although I do try to pressure wash everything afterwards.
So a word of warning if replacing Panda discs. A few days before you do the job, try to get behind the wheel hub and apply plenty of easing oil to the threads of these bolts so you don't have the hassle that I did.
On a more optimistic note, the calliper design is neat with the pads slotting into flexible clips that are included in the pad kit. This means there is not a lot of gunge and corrosion to clean off the calliper.

The locating pins arnt need either when you fit after market alloys as there isnt a hole on the wheels to locate the wheels on ..this applies on the panda and the same when I had my stilo and on that car I had to drill a countersink on the discs to fit new bolts to hold the dics in place as they turned every time I tried to fit the wheels on while lining up the wheels to hubs bolt holes :bang:

The locating pins are much softer than the disc face, so gently grind them flat. They are not tapped into anything but the hub, so then you can just get some moles on to remove them.

Especially with the hubcentric wheels, I don't know why they bother with them lol

Kristian

The locating pins do prevent the disc moving off the hub when you remove the wheel. This used to happen on some of the older Saabs which had no locating pins, dirt would then get between the hub and disc and when the wheel was replaced the disc was out of line leading to a lot of vibration on braking.
OK, I know that on the Panda, after only a short while, the disc corrodes itself firmly to the hub but I still feel happier to have at least one locating pin.