My brakes are broken

You've got air in the brakes & need to bleed them

Or the master cylinder has failed.

Tyres too shiny?

I bled them after i'd flushed them and put new brake fluid in.

Shokka.

Then you cocked it up.

Dave Baker - Puma Race Engines

The message from snipped-for-privacy@freeuk.com (Shockwave) contains these words:

If you're absolutely sure you've got all the air out (and I'm sure we've all had to repeat a bleeding 'cos we've got it wrong) then you've either knackered your master cylinder or you've broken the self-adjusters on the rear drums (if it's gott'em).

The self adjusters would allow the shoes to pull back in and push fluid back, pressing the brake would just push the shoes out against the springs. Have to say, this is very unlikely.

More likely is that the master cylinder has never travelled that far before and has hit a rough patch and damaged the seal.

Well either you've got a major seal failure , or more likely you just need to bleed them somemore, sometimes they're tediously stubborn.

I had the same prob with a 106 (Zest 2 1999) - in the manual it says to bleed rear drivers side then the rear passenger side then front drivers side then the passenger side and it must be done in that order - could be a load of crap I have no idea but it did solve my problem!!!

HTH

Tango > Monitor

At least you didn't make me spill wine!

Aside from interesting tyre modifications, could be shagged wheel bearings, faulty master cylinder seals, air still in the system (or more than there was if badly done).

One thing though, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has driven on bad brakes in the distant past, but it really would be a good idea to fix them or get them fixed before using the car again.

Maybe get them bled by a garage, and if the trouble persists then perhaps some other probelm?

By garage I mean your local trustworthry GGE or maybe Halfords (now AA), not the tyre and exhaust specialists that you see advertising nationally. who in my experience are keen to flog you something that you don't need, for lots of money (Broken handbrakecable sir? - we'll only quote for this if you replace the discs, drums, lingigs and shock absorbers)...

The message from "Richard Murphy" contains these words:

I was at my local ATS the other day and the bloke quite rightly pointed out that the rear shocks were - shot, but added that since I wasn't keeping the car long there wasn't a lot of point in changing 'em.

Exactly - really annoying. I had to go to a Kwik-Fit in desperation as my front pads were down to the metal. The barkes were reasonably cheap. Fine. But they refused to change the brake fluid when I asked them (I wanted it done anyway), as "It's company policy that we can't do it without making a full inspection, and I've noticed your brake pipes might be corroded so we can't do it without replacing them." Fair enough say that other things might need doing, but to refuse is just silly. Can't be from a safety point of view, as I still drove out with 'corroded' brake pipes. In any case I reckon that really they just couldn't be arsed - I can't see anything wrong with the pipes.

The message from Robert R News contains these words:

Yeah, but you're not looking at them through special "Sales bonus" glasses.

No, it's not from a safety point of view (by 'safety' I mean road safety). It's from a legal point of view (the firm's safety). If they changed the fluid and a brake pipe broke later you'd probably sue them (OK, so you might not but somebody might) and they would be wary of that in this litigious age where everything is someone else's fault and they should be made to pay for it.

Rob Graham.

I can kind of see that point of virew - but in the case where they've already told me that the pipes are corroded (which I don't believe anyway) then I have made a concious decision not to have that work done. So what are my grounds for suing? If I asked them to renew the brake pipes and they botched it resulting in loss of brakes then I certainly would have grounds to sue. I mean now that they've done the brake pads, does that mean they are liable if the timing belt snaps? No, so why should they be liable for brake pipes just because they have filled them with some nice new DOT5.1?