Mechanic Advice Please...

[oddjobby]

Hi guys,

I wondered if anyone knew anything about braking systems on cars. My mechanic is telling me that I need this that and the other to fix the brakes on my car, and my basic knowledge of how brakes work, the symptoms of the problem and what he is suggesting just doesn't add up in my head and I'm concerned he's trying to get a brucey bonus through me.

My car had an arguement with a traffic island at 40mph last August, and instead of claiming my insurance, I decided to have it repaired myself. My wheels and tyres were gubbed as well my brakes, track rod ends etc. I bought new alloys and tyres, and had the work done at the garage that I have been using for the past ten years. I told him what had happened and said 'whatever it needs to put it right, just do it'. So he did the work that he said was needed.

The car has never been right since, but in fairness I didn't expect it to drive the same, and that's what I had put it down to. Over the past few months my brakes have been a bit hairy (they should still be like new really) and occasionally only the abs would kick in during normal braking/parking. This gradually got worse until the abs worked but the actual brakes were less and less effective. There was also a burning smell during driving.

My mechanic has now said that I need 2 new ABS rings, and they are only available new, attached to a cv joint. So in essence, I need two new cv joints to fix my brakes. Surely if the ABS had been at fault, my brakes would still have worked?

Thanks in advance for any help. It just doesn't sit right in my head and I want to be sure that this is the solution to the problem instead of constant trips to the garage like I have been

[Boxer6]

I'm not the greatest mechanic in the world, but here's my tuppenceworth.

Firstly, ABS is only an additional function of normal braking, so if your brakes didn't work you wouldn't stop. Simple as that. However, it's entirely possible that one or more of your brakes is binding, which would cause brake-fade AND the burning smell you spoke of. Feel the wheel itself near to the brake (DON'T touch the brake disc itself - burny burny!)

Second, did he check your wheel/steering alignment? that being significantly "out" could cause excessive tyre friction, and consequent high abrasion and a burning smell. One or more of your tyres would already be badly worn if that is the case, so an easy check.

Thirdly, if you actually drove over the traffic island, there's a good chance various parts of your suspension, including t-r ends etc, were damaged; that would affect the steering quite noticeably I'd have thought, but again a good alignment checker would be able to tell you that. The other major component under there is, of course, the exhaust - damage to this could also cause the burning smell!

Unfortunately, I don't know if the items he's telling you about have to come complete with CV joints etc or not, especially not knowing what kind of car it is! A quick call to your local 'marque' dealers parts dept should answer that - most are quite helpful when it comes to stuff like that in my experience.

Good luck!

[Vintagebuff]

i would be very surprised if you needed one abs ring let alone two. The rings are magnetic ridges that a magnetic pick up senses. usually the gap between the pickup and the ring becomes too great resulting in the abs thinking the wheel has locked up and therefor activating. The gap can be opened up by dirt and dust abriading the mpu or accident damage. The burning smell is pretty much as stated by Boxer6.