EICHER Brake Pads Any Good ?

[Jockcl500]

I'm not quite so OCD and I don't pull them apart that often but I do maintain and lubricate my brake calipers when they need it. On my Motorcycle I can spin the front wheel by hand and it just keeps going with zero brake drag. The only way that can be achieved is by lubricating the caliper pistons so that the hysteresis in the piston seals is able to do what it's designed to do and pull the pads fractionally back off the discs.

Just did a pre-mot inspection on the car and there was a fair amount of brake drag on the front wheels. Single piston sliding calipers are horrid things and it's no wonder they don't work as well as dual piston calipers with only one seal to do the work. They got some exercise and lubrication for a significant improvement.

After all that the car failed it's mot on a broken front spring which I'd looked at but not spotted. The break was right at the bottom. For what it's worth I only had the one spring changed and the measured ride height is spot on the same both sides.

I think sometimes being OCD can be a good thing, the problem with pistons is they don't move a whole lot, sitting in one place in the caliper, especially if you don't do many miles, but taking apart, cleaning brake dust off, pushing the piston back into the caliper, re-lube and put back together, it really doesn't take long and means the brakes will always work properly, I also had a motorcycle (YamR1) and brakes working smooth is one of the best ways to stay upright, and the same cleaning and lube sequence is even more essential.
When checking coil springs, they almost always snap at the ends mostly the bottom, so running your fingers round to the top and bottom of the springs is the best way to check them, it is very easy to miss a broken spring if you just look at them.
I had my Fiat Panda in for an MOT today, it passed with some advisory's rusty coil springs and a misting front strut, which was exactly what I was expecting as I had checked it over, but I will be waiting for some decent weather in the summer, before I replace both front struts and springs.

 

[markjay]

No matter how well you know your car there's the dreaded MOT which = a necessary Evil e.g chance of being ripped off.

There are Council MOT Centres that I didn't know about EVER, so they have zero to gain by failing you, as don't sell tyres, brakes, exhausts, batteries etc, so if ever you Fail re book there

Over the past 20 years I have been MOTing my cars using various MOT testing stations around London.

In probably 40 MOTs (2 cars), I only ever had two occasions where my car failed. One was for a blown high beam bulb, the other for a cracked dust cap on a ball joint. In neither case did the tester offer to repair the fault.

So while I have no doubt that there are some scruples MOT testers out there, I wonder if MOT testers failing cars deliberately is really a wide spread issue? Or is the situation in London better than other places? Or perhaps I was just lucky....?

EDIT: I was offered a service by the garage when I presented a car that had the service light on (not a Merc), which I declined, but that was after it passed its MOT.

 

[Jockcl500]

No matter how well you know your car there's the dreaded MOT which = a necessary Evil e.g chance of being ripped off.

There are Council MOT Centres that I didn't know about EVER, so they have zero to gain by failing you, as don't sell tyres, brakes, exhausts, batteries etc, so if ever you Fail re book there

The MOT is nothing to worry about, I have had one car fail for broken rear coil spring about 4 years ago, and that was the wife's car, I hadn't looked at it as I had just had a operation on my hand(so wasn't able to do anything), and it needed a service so she had got is serviced at the main dealer and then it went somewhere else for the MOT and failed.
The main dealer also serviced another one of my cars, washed it and managed to fill the rear of the car with water.... they will never get any work from me after that.
most MOT centres are not out to rip anyone off.