The octy has started to shudder under breaking i feel it quite badly through the steering wheel. Took the wheel off and brakes look fine could it be bushes or something else? It doesnt happen when i do an emergency stop just under normal braking force eg coming down from 40 to a stand still. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Edited 27 September, 201213 yr by Graeme B

Can you get it to shudder under any other conditions ie swerving at high speed?

Does it appear to be uniform or from one side?

I have exact same, switched wheels back to front and it got slightly worse, no wheel balance shudder up to 70mph but I'm still thinking wheel balance. Checked the wheels visually and no obvious signs of missing weights - can wheels/tyres go out of balance over time? Seemed to come on after a 350 mile trip back from Cornwall without stopping (had an mot before this with no advisories).

Next test is to put my winters on to see if I can rule wheel balance out.

Warped disc?

I've read that sitting with your foot on the brakes after a long hard stop cooks the disc and can distort them.

An out of balance wheel would judder at a certain speed.

Juddering under braking would suggest a warped/cracked disc or a dodgy brake pad/s...

warped discs buddy

/\ What he said. Warped discs definitely. For starters worth taking the wheels off and bashing any loose rust off the lip of the discs and filing it down to make sure it's not an uneven build up or cr*p on them (had this on rear discs on Fabia several times) but likelihood is it's the discs that are shot, usually due to overheating by excessive use or binding calipers (which normally stink and make the wheels hot to the touch).

Wandering when braking however (struggling to keep the car in a straight line, especially when stomping on them in "deploy the anchor" situations) is usually wishbone bushes allowing too much movement of the wishbone itself but not judder of the steering wheel.

Edited 7 July, 201213 yr by Chrispy

Also something worth checking that I came across in my BMW E36 days. Make sure that the face of the hubs that the discs mount onto, and also the face of the discs that the wheel mounts onto are 100% clean. If not then the disc/ wheel may not sit perfectly flat. If the wheel is not flat then that normally causes wheel wobble just when driving but if the disc is not flat it can cause them to warp due to constant rubbing on the pads etc. so if they are warped, make sure the mating surface of the hub is spotless and flat when replacing.

discs and pads are cheap enough, just swap em out. i got drilled grooved discs and performance pads 2 weeks ago £60 all in

thanks for all the advice guys, cars got MOT on friday so will just get new brakes fitted then. So another question, trying to order new brakes for the car and it comes back with 280mm or 288mm discs for it, is there an easy way of knowing what size the car has without going outside and measuring them cause its raining cats and dogs outside and dont fancy taking a wheel off in it!!

If it is a warped disk get the calliper looked at too. I had this on a Focus and it turned out it was the calliper that was the problem. I went through 3 disks (under warranty) before the problems was fixed.

thanks for all the advice guys, cars got MOT on friday so will just get new brakes fitted then. So another question, trying to order new brakes for the car and it comes back with 280mm or 288mm discs for it, is there an easy way of knowing what size the car has without going outside and measuring them cause its raining cats and dogs outside and dont fancy taking a wheel off in it!!

If you put your reg plate into the Eurocarparts website it *should* give you the correct discs for the car.

yeah used the euro car parts thing, once again came up with 2 sizes, ended up phoning the parts guy at skoda and they sorted it, if anyone is interested the 280 disc is for FWD and 288 for 4WD.

As with most VAGs Skoda will have choices of disc sizes - if you dont know it feel free to PM me the reg and we can check using the SKODA system.

Pat

It's rare to really warp a disc, more often that not it's just some deposits left on the disk surface by the pad.

Well the car went in to the local VW independent garage today for MOT and brake change, went to pick the car up and the guy asked me how bad my brakes were and told him what i had felt as the above post. Well...... he took the nearside disc off and it came off in 2 pieces, it was a vented disc and it had split down the centre of the vents so it looked like i had 2 separate thin brake discs. Kinda shocked and started looking back through the receipts i got for the car, i dont know how long a disc should last but the disc has done approximately 15k miles. I will get some pics up later on as i have kept the disc, going to try and find some identification on the disc see if its a known problem.

That is poor - I have done 35K on one set of front discs and pads, but a lot of that is motorway so not much braking happening.

It isn't the mileage that wears them out, it is how often and how hard you brake.

i agree but I wouldn't expect brakes to just split.... Here are a few pictures to show how they came off the car.

Brakes 3 by gerbil_b1, on Flickr

Brakes 2 by gerbil_b1, on Flickr

Brakes 1 by gerbil_b1, on Flickr

Edited 13 July, 201213 yr by Graeme B

Jeezus. :S

That cannot be original parts, can´t be!!!!

i can not find any identifying marks on them. I have contacted the dealer to find out where the parts came from as the brakes were replaced as part of the deal of me buying the car so will see what they say. The weird thing is the VW garage have told me the discs and pads had another 10K approx in them so they couldn't understand the disc splitting.

Edited 14 July, 201213 yr by Graeme B

Wow thats pretty bad!

The only reasons i can see of disc's splitting is too much heat and that would take alot alot of hard braking or just a simple manufacturing flaw.

Next step is to find out when they were fitted and what if they are genuine parts or not.

Its all very well VW saying the brakes have 10k, that is just a visual inspection and a wrong one at that, brakes last aswell as the driver intends.

Im presuming you have new pads and discs fitted now so your out of harms way now.

i can not find any identifying marks on them. I have contacted the dealer to find out where the parts came from as the brakes were replaced as part of the deal of me buying the car so will see what they say. The weird thing is the VW garage have told me the discs and pads had another 10K approx in them so they couldn't understand the disc splitting.

Can't be original parts then, if changed 15k ago. My VRS was on 60k when unsold it and was still on original discs and pads, and judging from a recent thread on here it's not unusual to get that and more out of them

Yes brand new discs and pads now fitted, i am still waiting for the original dealer to get back to me with information on what discs were fitted when i bought the car.

I think you were bloody lucky it didn't separate while driving!

Blimey you were luck there,never seen that in 20 odd years of working on cars,seen a bit missing from the face of a disk,but then again it was a MG TF.

Trev