Whilst at work today I thought i'd have a look at my front brakes to see if I could work out wht the noise and vibration was when braking from speeds of over 40 MPH. I jacked the car up and took the wheel off, the pads seem fine with at least 8mm still on them inside and out. The discs don't have any lips on at all. The only thing I did find is the inside of the disc on both sides of the car are completely smooth, which is strange as the are grooved discs. You can still see where the grooves were but there is no groove now. Any one have any ideas if this is how they should wear or what would cause this if its not right?

whilst under the car I thought I'd see if I could sort my cat heat shield out as it seemed loose and I can here vibration at certain revs. Unfortunately both of the bolts at the front of the shield are correded badly and there was no way they are coming off, as soon as you put a socket on the they just crumble. Can any one confirm if the heat shield should be spot welded on either side, as it looks like it and if so these are broken hence the vibration.

Now the expensive bits!

First of all I noticed this

Metal clip from end of gaitor missing and replaced by a cable tie that obviously wasn't doing its job properly by the amount of grease splashed up on the heat shield,

I thought I'd check the other side and found this

The clip also missing from this side but not as much gease this time.

And to top it all off, I found this nice little mess all over the drivers side of the box

So it seems I have a leak from the drive shaft oil seal!

She's booked in Monday to have four new tyres fitted at my trusted garage so they are going to have a look and hopefully sort it for me. I'll also get the to replace whatever is left of the transmision fluid while they are at it instead of just topping it up.

So all in all another expensive month with the Octi.

the zip tie thing i would not worry about to much, i know enough garages that zip them on (my old place of work also) . the grease is prob old grease that has leaked which is why they popped a zip on it.

Driveshaft oil seal are easy to replace just a bit of labour to replace, the part will be £7 tops to the garage. . may as well change your gear oil as well as it will be drained.

At least you got to it before you heard a loud bang and lost all drive.

Clouds and silver linings - not that it helps the bank balance though.

Great to see some pics on your thread too

Yeah luckily i've caught it now as you say, also quite lucky that both gaitors still seem in really good condition so no need to change them.One thing I'd like to knwo is would any of the above cause the car to drive any different, I seem to get quite a lot of vibration through the pedals but it feels more like its coming through the wheels if you know what I mean?!

sure your wheels dont need balancing? could be a engine mount, could be a wishbone bush, wheel baring.... could be a few things really.

Wheels do need balancing but it felt the same before I changed the wheels. I checked all the bushes today and they actually seem ok.