Although the details refer to another make this little cautionary tale is applicable to all cars with floating calipers.

To use as an everyday car, a year or so ago I added an Alfa Romeo GT coupe to the stable, FSH 50k, just serviced including cambelt & tensioner and all went well - much the same as Jaguar ownership. A couple of months ago & 10k miles later I felt that the brakes were not so efficient & seemed to be front biased in a big way. Fortunately the village garage is close so I asked if I could use the brake tester in his MOT bay to check them out. They were fine ,nice & even good pressures, on the road the car stopped fine in a straight line. On a visual check just a bit of UN-even pad wear, but they still didn't feel right.
Even though the garage looked at my figures had said they are fine for the MOT next month I decided on a full brake overhaul & clean up.

The pictures show what I found, all sliders had been sticking, discs were de- laminating, reaction pad friction material had detached from back plate on both fronts & big lump of friction material missing Very very uneven wear on pressure & reaction pads.
So, as its 18 months since I last had a good look at the XKR brakes she is now in the garage & I will spend the next couple of days going over them. (the Alfa has a full new set of grooved & dimpled discs with Mintex pads courtesy of Mtec who's service was great)
Even if it passes an MOT it may pay to strip & rebuild or at least check & re-lube!!

 

Palantir, You are so right, it just takes a little effort to check, if you are doing any kind of wheel off work.
I wish I had taken a picture of a job I did recently on a BMW, all pads were worn evenly, rotors worn down but no grooves. Replaced all and upon taking off the rears, only one parking brake shoe had half a pad and the other was gone, both sides. The previous owner must have been a weekend SCCA participant, I could not explain it any other way. Never seen anything like it, as most parking brakes last as long as the car, it's not a friction wear point.


Wayne

 

I had to remove and thoroughly clean the front brake pads and calipers on my wife's XK8 in March 2013. Lots of brake dust build-up and road grime prevented me from seeing how much pad was left when the wheels were on the car. An indie shop in Jacksonville, Florida that the previous owner used had installed the front pads just a couple of weeks before we purchased the car pre-auction in February 2012. I'm not sure what brand they were but they sure made a mess during their first year. After I cleaned them thoroughly and re-installed them, she got another 20,000 miles or so out of them and they did not make nearly the same mess as they initially did. I finally replaced them last month after determining that they probably had less than 500 miles left in them. I believe my set of Wagner ThermoQuiet pads will last much longer and make far less mess....

 

Someone didn't drive that car much

 

I guess I got lucky as all the rotors and pads on mine looked shiny and new and seems to be holding up well. Except for the emer brake stuff that was seized. The guy at the state inspection station actually made the remark that the car appeared to have been well maintained.




Dave