Brake Discs

[WeeDonns]

I bumped my front left wheel off a kerb the other day (while avoiding another car that crossed into my lane) and now there's a loud scrapping noise from the front left when I'm slowing down.

I took it to ATS at lunchtime and they said the brakepad is scraping the disk and it needs replaced. They quoted £188 for replaced disks and £57 for new brake pads.( for an '06 Ford Focus)

The thing is, the car is breaking fine, it just makes this annoying noise when it does (no pulling to the side or anything like that). Does anyone know how long I could continue driving with this scrapped disk? Would it be unsafe to continue doing so? I've 11 months until my mot is up, so I was thinking of driving away like this and getting the disks replaced at a later time.

I have so many more fun things to spend £200+ on at the minute

[RMDrive]

Can you have a look at it yourself? If you feel comfortable doing in (and more importantly safe) then jack her up and have a look at the pads and the disk yourself. Worn pads will be easy to see and you should feel the disk sticking while you try to spin it if it is badly warped. I'd question that hitting a kerb could cause damage to the breaks like that though. Was your wheel damaged?

[Tony Baloney]

Did you break your brakes?

[mc_grens]

I bumped my front left wheel off a kerb the other day (while avoiding another car that crossed into my lane) and now there's a loud scrapping noise from the front left when I'm slowing down.

I took it to ATS at lunchtime and they said the brakepad is scraping the disk and it needs replaced. They quoted £188 for replaced disks and £57 for new brake pads.( for an '06 Ford Focus)

The thing is, the car is breaking fine, it just makes this annoying noise when it does (no pulling to the side or anything like that). Does anyone know how long I could continue driving with this scrapped disk? Would it be unsafe to continue doing so? I've 11 months until my mot is up, so I was thinking of driving away like this and getting the disks replaced at a later time.

I have so many more fun things to spend £200+ on at the minute

Whether or not the disk is being scraped by a faulty pad, or a stone, or whatever, as you keep driving your disks will get worn down more than usual and will therefore become less safe.

[WeeDonns]

I'm going to have a look at it at the weekend myself first.
ATS just put it up on the lift and looked in the back of the wheel, and to be fair you could see the disc is scrapped more than the other one.
I don't think the wheel is damaged.
looking online here, front discs for my car range from just under £30 to £50 for a pair

[comethekingdom]

The bit that caught me was the price - go to an independent garage and get it done for less than half the price!!

[Keyser soze]

That's definitely too much to pay, you'd be better to shop around to see if that's the problem and what other people quote you for the repair. I wouldn't mention what ATS have told you or how much they quoted you until they give you a price.
A broken disc could possibly be dangerous to drive on as it may cause the wheel to seize [unlikely though]. You musta hit it a fair whack to damage the disc, i'm surprised your rim ain't damaged [no smut please]. It's more likely that the impact has caused the lining of the pad to fall off, so that the metal backing plate of the pad is now rubbing directly on the disc, thus causing noise. I'd imagine this would have a fairly adverse effect on braking performance. It's possible your brake discs have also come to the end of their life. How many miles on your car?

[WeeDonns]

I took it down home today to a mechanic round the corner from my folks house.
He said the pads were nearly completely done and while there was some scoring on the disc, it definitely didn't need replaced.

He had the car back to me in less than an hour and it only cost £45 to replace the brake pads.

Feel like I've made £200 rather than spent £45 

[RMDrive]

I took it down home today to a mechanic round the corner from my folks house.
He said the pads were nearly completely done and while there was some scoring on the disc, it definitely didn't need replaced.

He had the car back to me in less than an hour and it only cost £45 to replace the brake pads.

Feel like I've made £200 rather than spent £45 

Good stuff.