Warped Brake Discs

[Robbie 2B]

Took the car for its MOT check today - £44 well spent.

 

One of the points found was that the front discs have warped. The tester did a long series of brake tests and in the end let the car pass. However he said that this is normally a fail item and I need to change the discs. So three questions:

 

1. Has anyone else had this problem with the RH supplied discs?

2. Could this problem be due to another fault making the discs run out-of-align?

3. When replacing the discs should you put motor factor standard replacements or go for the all singing 'performance' discs?

 

I find it very easy to lock the front wheels with the RH discs now on the car especially in the wet(basic Yokos being used).

 

Comments appreciated

 

Robbie

[Guest timswait]

Mine got through two sets of discs (warped them) in fairly quick succession. They weren't RHE ones, one pair was the ones from the donor the other were Ferrodo ones from Motorworld (still cheap). You could tell they were warped from a judder in the steering wheel under braking. They will warp as a result of excessive heat build up, often as a result of spirited/track driving. The wrong pads will also exaserbate the problem. Last time I changed the discs I changed the pads too, even though they weren't excessively worn (not to anything fancy, just Halfords own brand), and touch wood the discs have been fine since (only been a bit over a year/5000 miles so far, but does include several trackdays).

[Guest TerryBarry]

When fitting brake discs it is important that both mating faces ( disc and hub ) are scrupulously clean.

Any grit, rust or similar can cause the disc to run out of true.

[Peter Bell]

Robbie I assume they are the vented ones, I had that problem with my Sierra they warp slightly at the hollow ventilated bits due to heat and pressure, but I expect the mileage was a lot more than your hood. I just replaced mine with motor factor ones and were fine. I have solids on the hood though.

Peter

[Guest Giggling_Buffoon]

Probably worth noting that Ford had major problems with discs warping... In '92 I had 4 pairs of disc's on a Ford Escort (my first dearly beloved car) - it kept failing its MOT on warped front disc's. So its possible that RHE has got hold of that particularly bad batch....

 

In the end I went to the local scrap yard and bought a pair off of one that had been rear ended. Figured they must have been working alright as everything was squashed up to the rear seats......

[Guest chris brown]

Discs do warp as Tim says I would suggest it is not the fact that they are RHSC supplied ones which will be factor supplied items. When changing discs always replace the pads at the same time refitting the old ones even if they are only slightly worn is a false economy as they will be shaped to the old discs on the braking faces.

With the weight of the Hood factor supplied discs and pads will under normal driving and the occasional track day will be fine in fact super expensive ones and fancy coloured pads will lock up the fronts even quicker than ever.

[Guest rizla]

its also worth checking the caliper slider bolts,make sure they are free

[E.Hunt]

another item worth checking is the bottom track arm bushes as we had plenty of discs returned as warped but rejected under warranty because they were still within tolanrances.Most of the time this was fixed when the bushes were replaced with heavy duty ones This was with 3 diffrent manufactures.