Kwik-Fit and the Bad Brakes Job

[Daniel_Bedson]

I had front and back disks and pads replaced on my Grand Cherokee by Kwik-Fit on 14th May 2013. It was done at the Crawley, County Oak brank.

 

I was charged over £500 for the job. Last night, 18th May 2013, with my two children, wife and I in the car, we had just started off on the motorway, travelling at aprox 60 miles an hour, when we smelt a horrible burning smell. We immediately got of the motorway, stopped, jumped out to have a look and found the rear passenger side wheel glowing red and the tyre smouldering.

 

Luckily, we have a couple of drums of water in the car and dowsed the wheel to cool it down and then called the AA.

 

The AA arrived some hours latter, but even after this time the AA man could still smell the horrible buring smell. He checked the car and confirmed the fault was rubbing break pads, which had caused friction.

 

In the words of the AA man "Kwik-Fit have messed up the job and your lucky to be alive".

 

The AA man pointed out the the smouldering trye was on the same side of the car as both the petrol and LPG tank and if we had not have stopped and had the water to dowse the wheel, from the heat damage he could see, the tyre would have burst into flames and potentially ignited the fuel and LPG.

 

He also explained that the tyre was only moments from failling due to the heat and this could have caused the car to crash if travelling at speed on a motorway.

Edited May 19, 2013 by citizenB
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[citizenB]

Is the AA man prepared to put that all in a report for you ?

[Daniel_Bedson]

Is the AA man prepared to put that all in a report for you ?

 

yes he already has done. All listed and signed

[citizenB]

Excellent.

[Conniff]

Amateurs and rear wheel discs don't mix. You must have both the rear discs and pads changed, (of course at Kwik Kraps expense) besides taking action against them.

[j66]

The fault could quite easily have been caused by a sticking caliper piston and not necessarily by the new pads & discs or the way that they were fitted. If the old pads had been worn for some time there may have been a corrosion build up on the piston, not enough so it couldn't be wound back into the caliper, but enough to prevent the caliper from fully releasing. If KF said at the time that new calipers were required, would you think that they were trying it on?

 

I wouldn't take what the AA man says as gospel. We had one tell a customer that the back axle was about to fall off his two day old car, that did a really good job of winding up the customer, when in fact the fault turned out to be a metal rod through the tyre hitting the wheel rim.

[scaniaman]

Yes, but a competent mechanic (not a tyre fitter) would have checked pistons and cleaned up if required.

Here again, many brake faults are caused by poor design (down to a price instead of up to a quality). My old Volvo's had twin pistons fitted instead of this crappy "Swinging caliper" carry on. No good to man or beast.

[KwikFit Official Customer]

Hi Daniel, we are concerned to hear about this, we'd like to investigate. Could you please e-mail us with some details and your vehicle registration number at kwikfitwebcare AT kwik-fit DOT com and we will look in to this for you. Kind regards