I have had Fabias from new for over 12 years now.  My first was a gold coloured Fabia diesel estate which I had for 9 years and clocked up over 100,000 miles with it.  I loved it and it never let me down. It took me all over the place as a demonstrator and the boot easily swallowed the large quantity of boxes I had to cart around with me.  I had intended replacing it when it reached 10 years but the prospect of a very large repair bill and the offer of an ex demo Fabia led me to change it in a hurry just before Christmas at the dealership in Aberdeen.  The staff there have always treated me well and I trusted them but the new car kept having problems with the brakes.  They used to jam in the mornings and if I didn't drive for a day or so they seized up.  I had them replaced several times but the crunch came when I put it in for its first MOT and it failed due to the brakes.  It takes me over an hour and a half to drive to Aberdeen for the regular service so I decided to wait in the showroom while the brakes were "seen to" and the MOT repeated.

While waiting I saw another Fabia in a lovely denim colour and thought how much more attractive it looked than the dirty greyish green model which I had bought in a hurry.  When eventually the foreman of the repair shop came over, it was not to tell me my car was ready, but to say it had failed the MOT again!

I jokingly said "Then I'll just take this nice new one instead" and to cut a long story short that's just what I did.  I have not had my new Fabia for a year but I got a phone call to say it was due a service even although I have only driven about 6000 miles and not had it for a year.  I was told that although I have not had it that long it had been registered a year ago and so today I took it in for its service.  Instead of the bill for £150 which I was expecting, I was told that all the brakes were corroded and I would need to fork out over £600  I have not even had the car for a year, it is kept overnight in a garage, I live in the country so do not use the brakes as frequently as a town dweller would and I passed my Advanced Drivers Challenge fairly recently so I like to think I do not treat my car harshly.

Quite honestly I'm fizzing.  I would expect better from a brand new car and the whole experience has quite undermined the trust I had in the Skoda dealer.  Is this a common thing with brakes now?  Are they perhaps using cheaper materials that just don't last or have I just been unlucky?

If its a brand new car then this should be in the Fabia 3 section.

 

It sounds as though they are taking the mick. Worth taking some pictures and posting them to the forum to see how bad they really are? Have you tried simply giving it some stick and using the brakes to clean off the surface corrosion?

Edited 26 July, 20169 yr by DanHarper

Welcome to the forum.

 

Please post pictures of the Discs.

Is this an ARNOLD CLARK Dealership trying to 'Up sell' by telling you your brake discs are corroded?

Well, you know what, I'm almost expecting this when wife's August 2015 Polo goes in for its first service, they will get F all out of me for replacing the rear discs and pads, I'll take care of that, but there again, being a VW, the service chappies might not think to check the brakes on a newish 6.4K miles car.  I'm already annoyed as the car wants servicing in a couple of days times, though it was PDI'd and sold/reg'd on August 12th 2015, it is waiting until the 8th.  Luckily not an Uncle Arnie place,though probably not far off it in the way they perform! I just hope that I am made to eat my words after it has been in!

 

Edit:- by the way, being used in the dark freezing wet North + garaged nightly + out of town driving all assist in making this happen, these poor rear discs don't really get much to do so at best probably just get glazed up - my wife gets annoyed when I get firm with the brakes on her car now and again! (same location+storage+use as wife's Polo!)

Edited 26 July, 20169 yr by rum4mo

The 09 Fabia2 my wife had from new was an "S" model with steel wheels, and not much of the (front only) disks was visible, but they were replaced at 60k+ due to wear: smooth and shiny but worn thin.

 

During part of its time with us the rear (drum) brakes would stick on, and it was a work of art to get them unstuck.

Originally the brakes didn't stick, then it had one of the major services and the problems started:

damp weather, or time at the seaside - "sticky handbrake".

Either leave the handbrake off, or rev it up in reverse lift the clutch and wait for the bang, if no joy try first gear.. failing that try reverse again.

 

That problem was sorted during a service at a VW garage, without reporting the problem, instead of the usual Skoda garage (who could find nothing wrong with it, when asked).

I believe the cause was the Skoda garage removing an inspection bung/plug in the brake backplate to judge the brake shoe wear, but not replacing it afterwards.

 

Anyway, regarding Fabia3 - we are 3 months into a "demonstrator" SE with the standard 15" alloy wheels: you can see nearly all of the disks without trying.

 

If the car stands for more than a day or two, the disks get rusty and take quite a bit of use to clean up.

 

The front disks already have a rather uneven surface, which you can feel through the brake pedal, but they are generally shiny after a few hundred miles use in one day.

 

I don't expect the disks will last anywhere near as long as those on the Fabia2.

 

Time will tell.

That light rusting that appears, maybe just hours after washing the car etc, will not be causing any issues, that happens to most cars unless they have some crazy/fancy steel alloy as disc material.  The op is, I think, referring to the onset and accumulating deep seated rusting on the rear discs which maybe due to the rear discs normally not getting much work to do, never gets scrubbed off by the pads, instead it just penetrates deeper and spreads and forms a surface that is more resistant to wear than the pads, so it is there for life.  Mainly this will be a "feature" of the inner face of the rear discs, so it goes unnoticed until it has become a "big issue" - mean while braking effort from these discs has dropped off dramatically and at its next MOT it will get reported.

 

As a side comment, I used to own a 2000 B5 Passat, due to braking issues (it was one of the last of these cars to have 288mm front discs), I fitted ATE PowerDisc to the front, this worked really well while I used the car frequently, but then I started using the bus a lot, so any salt or salty solution that landed on these discs tended to stay on them - that trashed my new ATE PowerDiscs within a couple of winters, the "rot" grew outwards from the grooves and spread like a cancer across the faces of these discs.  Frequent use of that car in winter would probably have stopped that happening due the weather being warmer/wetter now and again and so washing the salty stuff away. Again that car was stored in a garage, which is not always the best plan, but convenient!

 

Edit:- anyway, from my experience, the factory fit discs seem to be more prone to this deep seated rusting, Pagid discs seem to sort that out for longer.  So maybe if living in UK, quickly changing to Pagid discs is the way forward.

Edited 27 July, 20169 yr by rum4mo

I have not noticed any issues on our car (year and 5 month old, 25k kilometers on it) - even during the "winter" with salt on the roads etc. I have 16" alloys, so the brake discs are well visible.I do drive the car almost on a daily basis, and I do some harder breaking every now and then, just to keep the brake discs clean and nice. But driving Skodas since 2007 (2 Roomsters, and Yeti and the current Fabia) I have not had any problems with the brakes. Do they fit brake discs with better corrosion resistance in the Nordic countries? 

Coroded rear discs were a problem on my previous volvo. Local...much trusted....local spanner man told me I was "Another b****y IAM guy who plans ahead and never gets to use the rear brakes. Once a week, or so, get to somewhere quiet, build up some speed and really stand on the brakes. Repeat a couple times. Will keep the brakes healthy". Good advice when you think about it. These things are designed to work, not sit idle forever. Same for handbrake systems.

I have not noticed any issues on our car (year and 5 month old, 25k kilometers on it) - even during the "winter" with salt on the roads etc. I have 16" alloys, -------------  Do they fit brake discs with better corrosion resistance in the Nordic countries? 

 

Grrrrrrr!

Rear discs are a total waste of time, the rear brakes do virtually no braking in a normal car and have always been problematical with regard to the handbrake. If you keep the vehicle any length of time you know you will have to change the discs regularly, drums, after 100k plus you might have to change the cylinders and shoes. You may need to manually fiddle with the automatic adjusters occasionally as well but .....

Cant live with them, and cant live without them!

 

Many budget models from many manufacturers are 'Fit for Purpose' and give many years of service with minimal Service and Maintenance.

 

Many Volkswagen Group Braking Systems and parts are pants.

Rubbish on Budget models and even premium models, even luxury models.

Poor design, manufacturing and then rubbish servicing or no servicing carried out for many years as a matter of course.

 

So it is not a case of getting what you pay for,

you might pay the same with other Manufacturers and get decent OEM parts and with VWG Brake parts get cheap rubbish, 

or not so cheap and still rubbish.

News from a Rapid owner - my wife's 2 year old Rapid had severe corrosion on the rear discs. So bad I noticed it before the car was a year old. Skoda have issued a technical bulletin - and I paraphrase - where they will do anything possible to avoid replacing the discs under warranty. Unless you experience heavy vibration under braking, Skoda UK don't want to know.

 

So, not wanting an advisory - or worse, a fail - at the first MoT, I bought some mintex discs and pads and did the job myself. 24,000 miles! 30 quid and about an hour. Was I going to fit Skoda parts - and have the same issue? Nope. We don't live by the sea, the car is regularly driven, but the original disc / pads are rubbish.

Humm, that kind of of sums it it up, though I think that you should change "Skoda" for"VAG" - though all these parts used across this platform are Skoda, or CZ based companies, so maybe that Skoda link is the root cause of all this trouble with brakes!

Last car I had for 13 years from new and sold it at 131000 miles.

Replaced front brake pads at 55K and again at 120K with front disks once at 75K.

Replaced rear brake pads at 75K and still on original rear brake disks when sold.

 

Second car I have had 7 years and 75k miles from new.

Replaced front brake pads at 50k with front brake disks still good.

Rear brake drums inspected and cleaned/greased at 6 years old and all good, not even half worn.

 

I do use the brakes and not the gears to slow down ( now an old and bad habit ).

But I always try to keep everything smooth with no sharp brake application but use a progressive braking application.

It is cheaper to replace all the brakes than to replace the clutch.

My ex 13 year old, 131k mile car is still now on it's original clutch.

 

I keep my cars for a long time and to keep my brakes good I do some maintenance:-

 

Every year in the autumn both front and rear brake pads are removed, cleaned and regreased with copper grease/copslip.

On some ( but not all ) cars the brake pads can be rotated from inside to outside or side to side or even both is my favourite method.

The brake disks will have any build up of rust removed from the tops at the same time.

I have found that this method will stop any stuck/seized/jammed brake parts from happening.

This will prolong their working life, see my cars above for examples.

This can also keep your fuel consumption figures good, as sticking brakes will make the car use more fuel.

This maintenance takes about 1-2 hours per car to do.

 

Occasionally I will apply the handbrake while moving at speed to clean up and exercise the rear brakes.

Don't try this at home unless you know what will/can happen- rear brakes can/will lock up as the ABS will not work on the handbrake.

 

Cars with rear drum brakes do NOT like to go backwards first thing in the morning.

So always back in to any overnight parking space so that you will go forwards first time you next move.

 

Hope this helps.

AG Falco

Edited 31 July, 20169 yr by AGFalco

if you only drive with one or two in the car and drive gently I think rear disks can be and issue

 

if you drive with 5 adults or good load in the boot every few weeks or a reasonable spirited driven needing a bit of heavy braking the rear disks the rear disks stay cleaner

_{Thanks to all the people who replied to my post.  Looks like I thought I was doing my brakes a favour by being gentle with them when the opposite is true!  Unfortunately I did not ask for the old brake pads/discs to be returned to me as so many people have advised - another lesson learned.  I did ask at the time to speak to the service manager but that didn't happen and I didn't push the point!  My husband has just returned home having had his Yeti in for its first service.  After my experience he went to a local garage and his bill was a fraction of mine.  He mentioned my experience with the brakes to the mechanic and was given the advice that after driving in the rain to apply the handbrake while still moving just before parking the car to dry the brakes before leaving the car.  So I'll take all your  advice, leave the car parked in gear with the handbrake off and reverse into the parking space so that I drive straight out.  I will also save myself the long drive to and from Aberdeen and the hanging around there while the job is done and support my local garage!}

I would NOT suggest you park the car without putting the handbrake on.

But do still put the car in gear when left parked.

There was a death due to this in Central London.

A van was left in gear but with the handbrake not applied.

Another car nudged the van while trying to pass it.

The van jumped out of gear and ran down a hill and crashed in to a building trapping some one in front!

 

Imaging your car a your body, it wants/likes to be used.

If you don't exercise your muscles they will not work as they can, same as the cars brakes.

 

Thanks AG Falco.