I just had my wife's T reg 1999 VW Golf 1.6 serviced at Western VW in Edinburgh (a main dealer). She told them the was squeaking coming from the wheels, both under braking and also driving along. They serviced the car then told her it needed new disks on the front and new pads all round. It has only done 48,000 miles! Apparently the disks are "badly corroded and grooved". I rang them to ask why disks should have worn out after just 4 years and the chap said that the disks have an expected life of between 1 and 3 years depending on how the car is driven and where you live. He said he had come across a case of disks worn out after a year because the driver lived near the sea and the salt corroded them. Also apparently they make the pads harder (to make them last longer) which makes the disks last not so long ... it all sounded like a right load of BS.
I told them not to do the job and I will be getting them checked by Kwik Fit. In the meantime I rang Sloans (another VW main dealer) and the service dept. corroborated the story from Western. Apparently "disks are not as well made as they used to be, the material is not as hard and they are not made to such high quality to make the cars cheaper". And I thought VWs were supposed to be bullet-proof.
Anyway I had a peer through the wheels at the disks and pads using a torch and they don't look too bad to me. I guess this could be the garage just trying it on with a lady driver (there were a string of other faults that brought the total bill to over 700 quid!) but I was just going to see if anyone had any comments on how long disks are supposed to last on cars these days.
Cheers, Ian