hi there, I have an issue and have had for some time, whereby my front left wheel when braking will grab on something as the wheel is going around, I have taken both wheels off to inspect the disc's and pads, and the inside on both wheel are down to about 25% on the left and 5% on the right inside pads repectivly, the outer pads are about 50% worn i think.

The only reason i say it's the left wheel is because when driving at crawling speed applying the brake a squeel can be heard from the left wheel only, and is intime with the grabing that i'm getting, the disc's seem to be ok and dont look pitted or bent in anyway, but i'm going to replace them anyway along with the pads, what i dont want to happen is that they go the same way if there is another problem there, thus wasting me money.

what else could be wrong with the wheel?

Hub?
bearibgs?
Toe/Tie Rod? garage that last MOT'd my car said there was an issue here, what and where doi look, and what effect does this have on the car?

Kind regards

Paul.

 

in addition to the above, the wheels do not lock up but will bring the car to a quick stop when going really slow.

I also have a very soft breake pedal aswell, but i need to bleep the brakes, I just dont know how to do it. or where to bleed them.

 

also, your front left wheel should be considerably warmer after some time, then the right one. and it's becouse of the front left brake.
two things to check

-you should make sure that the pads on front left are moving freely. meaning that they return to their stand-by position after releasing the brakes. it may be that their movement is blocked becouse of the rust on the guides.
-if that is OK, you should take apart front left caliper and clean it from inside. rust, dirt and debris are blocking movement of the brake piston.

don't put new rotors or pads before solving this problem.

 

ok.. ill see if i can take apart the caliper tomorrow, ive seen some instructions someplace on how to do this.. so will do that first.

also another point to add to this is that recently within the last month, during quite a small space of time the outer edge of the left wheel was worn, also when the car was in for an MOT, they were going to fail it on a slightly loose toe/tie rod end, something like that. is this a seperate issue, the only reason i ask is that it's on the same front left wheel.

The garage said that i should not drive the car until this is sorted out, but i have been driving it now for over a month, ofcourse i will get it looked at, but dont want to get ripped off.

Also what type of code reader do i need to buy for my grand voyager is it obd2 ?

 

worn tie rod is a separate thing and doesn't affect braking.
you may be loosing direction when changing load on the engine, but braking has nothing to do with that. it will only wear your tyre sooner then normal.
after changing tie rod, you MUST do optical alignement of the wheels.

connector on the lower left dash should have a cap and should be a sign on it . it should read OBDII if the car is newer then 1998.

 

ok ive cleaned out the disc and pads, i did not take the caliper off yet as i dont have the tools to do so here.

However it made no difference and i still get the judder, so could be a cailper problem still ?

 

of course it could be the caliper.