What A Bind

May 20, 2015

Most of us have probably heard our brakes make that awful noise when pulling away from home, or when the car has been sat and the brakes got wet. Well, ours did make that sound but it wore off after a few hundred yards. Recently however, we noticed that the sound did not go away as normal, so after a little discovering where the sound was coming from, the rear right wheel, I took it into Mr T for investigation. I did this because they service our car, and at the last service there was nothing on the reports to say the discs would need replacing at a specific future date. During the investigation they looked at all the brakes as I reported excessive break dust on the front wheels too.

The problem turned out to be that rear right brake binding. I was shown the brake pads and one of them looked like a wedge of cheese, or a doorstop. So, it got booked in for today and both rear discs and pads replaced. I looked at the rear discs after their investigation on Friday -two hours altogether. They did not charge us for that time and freed up the brakes so they would still work safely. Of course, the excessive brake dust is likely because the front brakes were working harder.

After dropping it off today and collecting it, I noticed a big difference in the way it behaved. It felt, for want of a word I can't find, lighter. Obviously, the brake binding affected the car a lot. Fuel economy is down a great deal. recently my 'Fuelly' figures have been rather low. I also needed to fill up and got my fuel from Sainsburys in Shrewsbury. The usual happened after a refuel, the MPG went rather high by the time I got home, it was 64.7. I drove steady, but to the speed limits, although only doing 60 on the dual carriageway as it wasn't busy.

I thought it was the usual fluke, but no... we then went to Newtown in Powys -on the hilly A489 road into town- and the figure when we got back (same road but uphill) home was 64.3. I will keep an eye on this, but it's clear the brake binding really hit our economy. We haven't seen figures like this for a while, so it's nice to get back to them. At the next fuel up I will see what the figures are from 'Fuelly.'