Hi,

Whilst driving in France my Superb’s break pad amber warning light came on.

I was nearly at my destination, so completed my journey and called my UK breakdown provider. They passed me to their European department and a recovery vehicle was sent.

The recovery person looked at the light. Did not inspect the brakes. Then told me the car would be safe for the remainder of my holiday and the journey home -at least 1000km.

He left. I called the phoneline and they got him to come back and take the car for repair.

I’m waiting to hear back about the diagnosis and cost.

Is there any law breaking or professional malpractice involved in his initial advice that the car was safe to drive?

The pad warning light is just that .. a warning that the pads will need replaced. It's not a replace immediately light.

So no malpractice at all and you'll probably get charged for the replacement and call out as it wasn't actually necessary

Edited 16 August, 202516 Aug by skomaz

As above. The car would have been fine for the rest of your trip. There were very few warning lights on the car that are “stop driving immediately”. Even the check engine light is rarely linked to anything that critical (usually just a malfunctioning sensor)

Welcome to the forum.

Agree with both replies above, warnings where it would be necessary to immediately stop driving until rectified would be red fault indications - where safety is compromised or serious damage could be caused by continuing to drive - amber fault warnings should always be investigated ASAP, but will not usually render the vehicle unsafe to drive.

You used to get an amber warning light for the windscreen washer fluid...

Thank you everyone for your replies.

Just to add a bit of additional context. The 1000km return journey would be with a car fully laden with camping equipment. Before the light came on I had noticed that braking had started to feel juddery. Also the front brake pads and discs had been replaced 8 months ago.

Does the above make any difference to your opinion?

In my opinion, no. Certainly something that should be looked at when you're home. It was just a brake pad warning indicator, there should still be a good percentage left to get you hope. Now, if you were hearing metal on metal grating, that's a different story. A quick visual inspection from yourself would have told you, at least on the outer pads that there was something left or not.

5 hours ago, MartyBe said:

Does the above make any difference to your opinion?

Nope not at all... (See above post)

Also Id imagine that whilst you return Journey distance is 1000km, the majority of that mileage will be on the highway with few times that you will need to heavily apply the brakes if your drive carefully.

You could try to find a local garage who could change them while you finish your trip.

8 months seems like a very short time to replace pads again unless you use your car as a taxi.

Could it possibly just an electrical fault & the brakes themselves are fine?