Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I picked my car up from kwik fit, after a new set of brake pads and fresh rubber for the front. I've discovered a very slight knocking noise coming from the front wheels (i think) which i can feel through the steering wheel as well. I'm paranoid when i hear foreign noises, so i'm unsure if it's nothing to worry about, or whether it's something i need to get checked out. Any ideas what it could be? It's ever since I had new tyres on the front.

Off topic, i also had new brake pads on, and f**k me they made no difference at all...is that a sign of the discs going as well?:confused:

Any advice is appreciated, as you can see i'm an expert with these things...

My advice is to take it to a competent garage rather than Kwik-Fit, sorry. They're a bunch of robbing incompetents rather often. Maybe give them one chance to look at it, but careful they don't invent faults.

I take it it didn't knock before? Check the wheel bolts are tight first!

If your discs needed doing they'd have stitched you up for those. The brakes will improve as they bed in.

Cheers for your advice cjb, and yeh it wasn't knocking before, it's almost as if when i ride over slight bumps or pot holes that the wheels start to wobble. I know that sounds like an exagerration but i don't know how else to describe it. I know kwik-fit are a bunch of mugs, but i was in a pretty desperate and precarious situation with crap tyres and no brakes in the snow!

Again off topic, but how much should i expect to pay for a new temp gauge sensor?? I have a feeling my local VW garage is ripping me off!

As said already, the first thing I'd check is the wheel bolt torques.

Also ISTR the vRS uses bolts as the pad retainers, so those want checking by someone competent (ie not a Kwik-Chimp fitter) if it's not the wheel bolts.

If the old pads were just worn down, I'm not sure what you were expecting from new standard pads? They'd be the same or similar compound.

As for the new tyres, what make are they? Pirelli P6000 are 20 years old, so just c@rp by modern standards; Toyo Proxes T1-R are pretty good, but need several hundred miles to give up all their mould release and give full grip, so there's 2 more reasons why your brakes might not have improved immediately.

Other common sources of front end squeaks and rattles on the vRS would include ARB mounting bushes or drop-links, and the radiator mounting bushes. All easily checkable, preferably with a cold engine because it makes things more comfortable to hold.

Other uncommon sources of rattles from new tyres include things like fitters leaving pliers inside them (I'm not joking; a mate of mine once got a pair of pliers that way, and didn't have a chance to set me up).