Front pad wear MOT

if the low pads are seen then it would only be an advisory, the worn discs too unless they are really terrible. the main thing is how they perform on the rollers. brakes are cheap, whole cars are not.

Wise words indeed.

1.5mm minimum thickness, about the thickness of a 5p piece, now ask how we measure them to determin a fail, bearing in mind we are not allowed to remove the wheels ! we dont we use our x-ray vision that all mot testers have. just a pass & an advise if the tester isnt 100% sure.

Mrcheerful,

Wise words indeed, but I would have said that brakes are cheap - but lives are not - (whole cars can be replaced)!

Cash

I did consider it, but decided the sentiment of life cannot be measured in cash terms (which seems to mean more to many people than life) and so I left it in simple language.

I reckon mine are about 2mm thick, so right on that limit. The grove that is the wear indicator is still visible on each pad, so I figured they're ok for a short while.

General rule of thumb when I was a mechanic was to advise a change at

3mm.

I'm not trying to be deliberately awkward and there are lots of variables, but is the single stop braking performance of a pad with say 2mm the same as with say 4mm? If this is the case, sure, having to brake hard from 70 may well cook the brakes, but the car won't stop any quicker than if it had more pad material?

I've always noticed a sooner bite after having new pads, but the occasions when I have *had* to brake hard can be numbered on one hand in living memory.

Not the same, of course, with tyres...

Yep, sound advice.

Knowing how low the pads are - I feel a slight sense of shame driving it. MOT in early May, then we'll see.

With brake pads the lower the amount of pad the better the braking should be, the thinner material will quicker transfer its heat to the metal backing and should be less likely to cook than a thick pad which can quickly overheat at the surface (this is easy to do with new pads if you are a hooligan) Tyres which are bald will brake better than treaded on a dry clean surface simply because they have more contact area to grip the tarmac, Totally different in the wet when 7mm is the optimum low tread depth according to michelin. New pads feeling like the pedal is higher is usually because the old ones were partially seized or the caliper was partially seized depending on design or some air has been taken out during the fitting.

Or easy if you ride the footbrake down gradients and suchlike... ;)

Well, it's as much associated with the compound of the tyre, too..?

And I should have said, "in the wet" too heh. ;)

Assuming the same compound a bald tyre will have more grip than a treaded one on a clean dry surface.

when racing in some formulas you will actually wear away new (control) tyres to increase their grip before a race.

That's a very large assumption

My point is: IF the tyre type/make (and compound) is the same AND the road surface is the same dry clean one, then the bald one will have more surface area and more grip, therefore could (if the brakes are up to it) stop the car in a shorter distance.

I had a car fail once at 3mm, about 15yrs ago. I had bought replacement pads to fit prior to MOT time but it snowed heavy so I left it with the 3mm pads, the MOT guy wouldn't pass it but let me go home and fit the things, I took it back just as they were closing shop, showed him the empty pad box and he passed it. Couldn't happen nowadays.