Very rapid brake pad wear.

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Si Click

Si Click

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Lincolnshire
OK up front admission, the vehicle concerned is a Volvo V70, but the question is a fairly generic one.
Two months ago I swapped rear pads and discs on our V70. I used Eicher pads and discs bought in one of the usual 50% off sales at Eurocarparts.com; total cost £65. Yes I know that this is very cheap.

4000 miles later we are on our way up to Edinburgh for New Year and the left rear starts to make metal on metal sounds. First chance to change them was this afternoon. The outer pad had no material left and the disc was understandably heavily scored. The other pad appeared almost new and that side of the disc was similarly in good shape. I placed the old disc on a granite work top to check for warping and it is totally flat. When I removed the other side the discs and pads also appeared new.

So what caused one pad to wear so quickly? If I had fitted it incorrectly I would have thought the wear would be on both pads. I am thinking that it may just have been a cheap pad that broke up. Has anyone else come across this?

Now replaced with Brembo discs and pads.
IMG_20200103_154949a.jpg
 
Are the pads freeing off when the should? Normally excessive pad wear is due to sticking calipers, or a handbrake not releasing.
 
Nodge68 said:
Are the pads freeing off when the should? Normally excessive pad wear is due to sticking calipers, or a handbrake not releasing.
Click to expand...

My original assumption was that the left rear had been binding, but surely this would give wear on both pads?

I checked the piston when I replaced them this afternoon and it retracted normally to put the new pads in and seemed to apply evenly with no sign of binding. The handbrake is electronic and was in service mode (through VIDA/DICE) during the swap and went back into normal mode quite happily.
The test drive this afternoon showed no sign of binding.
 
I'm not familiar with the brakes on this particular model, but is it by any chance the sort of setup where you just have a piston on one side and the caliper slides? If so it would be worth ensuring that everything moves freely, in case the pad on one side is doing all the work and the one on the other isn't.
I'd also be interested in the brake balance too. Could something have happened so that particular pad is being pressed harder than the others? Is its piston moving more freely than the others - they're not all rusted in are they? Or something up with any balance valves, abs units and the like?
Maybe it;s just part of getting old but it seems to me that fuel doesn't last as long as it used to and neither do brakes. I put some EBC pads on back in May and they're about halfway gone now. The first lot I had, by contrast, lasted for years.
 
Faulty pad - specifically the bonding, which has failed and let the friction material fall orft :rolleyes:
 
Brown said:
I'm not familiar with the brakes on this particular model, but is it by any chance the sort of setup where you just have a piston on one side and the caliper slides? If so it would be worth ensuring that everything moves freely, in case the pad on one side is doing all the work and the one on the other isn't.
I'd also be interested in the brake balance too. Could something have happened so that particular pad is being pressed harder than the others? Is its piston moving more freely than the others - they're not all rusted in are they? Or something up with any balance valves, abs units and the like?.
Click to expand...

Yes, single piston and a sliding caliper. It seemed to slide perfectly when I assembled it this afternoon. The overworked pad was on the opposite slide to the piston. If the slider was not working I would have though the pad on the piston side would do all the work?

Brake balance was fine right up to the point the pad material ran out. No sign of any ABS faults.
 
It would be interesting to see what the shop and manufacturer response is. There could be a bad batch.
 
OK, so now I am p*ssed off. I was not especially bothered about claiming a refund on the warranty, but thanks to the response from the staff in Eurocarparts I am now much more inclined to push the case.

I reserved the parts in September, bought them in High Wycombe and fitted them the same day. I have the email confirming the reservation and the order number. I do not have the printed receipt, but the order number should allow their computer system to verify proof of purchase.

They were not at all surprised, let alone apologetic that the pad material had separated and gave no consideration whatsoever to safety issues or whether these were from a batch they still had in stock. They were only concerned that I did not have a paper receipt. They claimed that without that I had no proof of purchase and therefore no warranty claim. They refused to input the order number and claimed that their computer records did not go that far back! Knowing that VAT records need to be kept for 6 years, at this point I decided to leave rather than accuse them of lying and have the interaction become more abusive than it already was.

So all I can find on proof of purchase is that this can be "a printed receipt, bank statement or packaging." Noting about the vendors electronic records and yet on the few occasions I have taken a product back, the proof of purchase has always been the vendors computer records. Anyone happen to know what my rights are in this case?
 
Their till may not allow them to search back in the stored records. The till receipt number is normally used and vital for them to match the sale.

Do you have an email for the reservation? In means nothing but a credit card statement printed oft the web would confirm you shopped there.

Unfortunately till staff will have set rules:
No receipt etc. It would need someone higher up to authorise exchange.

When i had whish bone problems with ECP supplying the wrong version for my FL1, I talked to their web chat thing to get a refund. They were surprisingly responsive.
 
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