Dumb idea or not – car discs and pads

I’m perfectly capable of the job technically, it’s just like on the bike but won’t need bleeding and less likely to use a tiny split pin under the fridge. It’s my son’s 2007 Citr C1.

I’ve been quoted best part of £150 for the pads only, £250 for pads and discs. Four Eicher pads from ECP are £20.99, Brembo for £31.99. Two discs are another £21 each. And I’d need to either buy a trolley jack or axle stands rather than use the scissor jack in the spare kit. Other tools like sockets, torque wrench, etc., I already have.  £100 outlay give or take for pads and discs and then own the jack or stands for future. Plus, my time.

Which is the question. Likelihood of going wrong, having a seized in place disc or stripping the head off a screw holding the disc on and what’s on paper an easy and quite fun job turning into a muddyfunster?

Also – the garage (not a tiny place but a local tyre place, NOT Kwikfit) quoted for pads and pads and discs, and didn’t do any of the sucking of teeth about having to do discs at the same time. I’m planning to pull a wheel off tomorrow and have a look, but it’s a 100k car, poss another 2 years / 20k miles plan….. is putting new pads on even if discs are lipped and worn a dumb idea or is that a garage upsell trick.

Thoughts?

Pads are a doddle.

Discs are very vehicle-dependant. Not sure about a C1 but it’s a garage job on my transit, they are behind the hub, the torque on the hub nut is 450NM, which I can’t shift, and tends to destroy a wheel bearing when removed.  I suspect a lot easier on a C1. The torque on the bolts on a proper mini is 60NM for instance. I changed one of my calipers and that was easy enough, just some rusty bolts a bit stiff.

Anyway, more helpfully if you are near the Tweed Valley you can borrow my trolley jack and axle stands.

I’d go with brembo pads and I’m running Brembo discs on the front of my Peugeot Partner – they are very keen almost Shimano like.

I do my own tinkering in our cars and have done for years- I must have saved 10’s of thousands doing so. I get my parts from Autodoc which have good DIY videos on common jobs including the brakes on a C1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAa6u-AsWeI

The job looks easy. But!…….as always with car tinkering you can be one snapped bolt away from the car being out of commission and a whole world of mission creep and swearing.

SGS have a good range of jacks and axle stands for DIY use

https://www.sgs-engineering.com/garage-equipment/axle-stands

pads often need a piston compressor. not expensive (£20?) to get a set that work on loads of cars, but you normally can’t just push them back in by hand. Also expect to have to take a bolt off the back of something with a massive breaker bar and work out after 10 mins you’ve been tightening it by mistake.

If you’re taking a wheel off anyway I’d suggest giving all the bolts/nuts you might need to undo a really good going over with a wire brush and dowsing them in penetrating fluid. Obviously you’ll be keeping this away from the actual discs. Let it soak for a few days and then have another look to see how confident you feel about getting everything apart. Whatever you decide, you’ll either have made the job easier for yourself or the garage. In my limited experience the most tedious thing is rounding out one of those little grub screws that hold the disc to the hub. You don’t need a trolley jack, but axle stands are a cheap investment for anything you fancy tackling in future on the car.

I don’t know if they’re all the same but I found that the peg spanner you use for changing discs on an angle grinder worked brilliantly for winding my piston back in

Getting the pistons back in can be very difficult – one car I worked on had some sort of weird screw adjuster to push them back that I had never seen before

Those grub screws – you need a manual impact driver and the correct bit for them

I’ve looked at the online vids and those issues seem not to be there (removing hubs / inaccessible bolts)

just the seized bolt fear.

You don’t want a jack or axle stands, you want a jack AND axle stands. Or at least one. Figuring out how to safely lift the car is the hardest part of the job. For brakes, probably just put one axle stand under some place solid under the car. The axle stand will take all the weight, the jack will do nothing once it’s on the stand. The scissor jack will therefore be fine. The problem with the jacks you buy is that they don’t fit with the jacking point on the car for some stupid reason, whereas the one in the boot does.

so 2 bolts for the caliper which has only one piston and seems can push in by hand or I could do with a spanner across the piston and wind in with a g-clamp – done similar with my Dad ages ago on a Fiat 127.

And if I want to do discs, 2 more bolts for the caliper mount, and one T30 screw for the disc.

Good shout on plus gassing it all in advance anyway.

Get yourself on youtube, chances are there’ll be a how-to for that exact car that’ll tell you if there’s any gotchas,special tools, random manufacturer ****ery etc and will let you judge it for yourself. Condition does make a difference, discs can be pretty seized on especially if the car’s not done a lot of miles recently- basically if it’s been used then it’ll have had discs and pads, if it’s not then they could have been on there for a long time.

The main thing that gets complicated is stuff like stuck brake caliper sliding pins, and pistons. Pistons can be very sticky but still not quite seizing and dragging and that can be revealed when you go to change pads (because usually they make very small movements but suddenly you’re making big ones). This is where a pro or experienced diy’er can be very useful as they can pick out problems early, and you do tend to lose that advantage if you’re diy’ing it without much experience. But equally nobody started out experienced!

TBH for most cars, I’d say it’s worth just making the attempt, and if you feel like it’s getting out of hand be prepared to back off, the worst that can happen is that you immobilise it on your driveway but as long as you don’t do that, then the second worst is that you just have to take it to a garage anyway so what have you lost? Basically just don’t get in too deep.

+1 for the scissor jack. Get the wheel off and stick it under the sill, then if the car drops off the jack the disc won’t hit the ground, or squash you. Then you’ll have a bit of room to reach in and get a stand in. Keep an eye on Aldi/Lidl they often do acceptable quality (German) ones for £10. Then drop the car onto the stand before you start applying weight to anything and you’ll be safer than using a trolley jack.

if your kid isn’t mechanically minded I’d have him watch this, it’s a life skill not to squash yourself under a car.

So – thoughts on needing discs too, or is pads on old discs on a low-performance car that barely gets up to 60 downhill, less if the aircon is on, a sensible compromise (safety is a consideration too, just that pads looks a piece of piss, pads and discs increase the jeopardy by 3 more bolts)

I just use a large G-clamp on my Pug brakes which are a very similar set up to the C1 (according to the video I posted).  Universal wind back tools are cheap on eBay/Amazon.

Remember to take the resourvoir lid off and put a rag underneath it especially if the fluid level is already high/topped up.

It’s your son’s car – do the discs as well.

Another top tip, if I’m doing anything mechanically complex especially on unfamiliar/safety systems get a red and green paint maker pen. Mark the bolt heads red when they are being removed and then mark them green once refitted and torqued.

So – thoughts on needing discs too, or is pads on old discs on a low-performance car that barely gets up to 60 downhill, less if the aircon is on, a sensible compromise (safety is a consideration too, just that pads looks a piece of piss, pads and discs increase the jeopardy by 3 more bolts

Pop some photos of the discs up if you can. I get my discs done on alternate pad changes if that’s any guide, but mine is heavy on brakes, mainly due to be heavy full stop

when just getting a wheel off, I normally try to slip the trolly jack under the suspension arm/bushing holder/whatever of the wheel I’m working on, and lift from there. My thinking (no idea if its any good) is that you’re lifting the car body far less (barely at all) so its safer if something slips, and you’ve also got no chance of crushing your cill/stupid plastic thing they put in that looked a lot like a jacking point and wasnt

Similar to your position- I recently did the discs + pads on my Kuga – the garages were wanting close to £1k for the 4 corners (Ford > £1k).  I reckoned thst even after buying the parts + new jack and stands (I’d recently scrapped my old jack and stands as they were old and rusty + I REALLY didn’t trust them any more after the shed roof leaks and they got wet and rotted) and a few small tools/bits etc, I was still hundreds of ££ in. And had the new jack, stands etc.

YouTube videos great.

The  trickiest thing was deciding the best location on the car  to jack and put stands (no nice structural box section on the underside of the Kuga, lots of plastic trim panels etc)

In the past that small single screw that stops the disc flopping about has been the biggest PITA on earlier cars for me (none fitted by design on the Kuga luckily). Defo want an impact driver – I got a Hilka branded manual one for not a lot of ££  from Screwfix.

Then the bolts holding the carrier to the strut – wouldn’t budge even with a big breaker bar until I used some of the ‘shock freeze’ penetrating spray.  That worked miracles and cha ged the ordeal to something straight forward.  Still can’t believe how effective it was.

Check the bolt head sizes too – I had to get an odd sized socket for 2 bolts on mine.  18mm AF – Never needed an 18mm socket in the previous 35 years !  17mm too small, 19mm to sloppy on the barsteward-tight bolts.

If you are anywhere near Carmarthen/ Swansea you are welcome to borrow my garage, jack, supports etc. It’s an easy peasy lemon squeasy job. Biggest faff will be pushing the pistons back in. I use g cramps for this. Sometimes the disc can be problematic to remove but a bit of judicious force can overcome this.

unfortunately nowhere near Carmarthen or Tweed. In fact if you triangulated for as far away as possible from those places, you’d be pretty close!

It sounds like you’ve never done this before so you don’t have any particular knowledge or experience to bring to this.

With that in mind, (and I know it doesn’t seem to be the STW way) why doesn’t your son fix his own brakes on his own car while you offer moral support and encouragement while drinking tea on the sidelines?

Once I have a wheel off I pop it under the wishbone/axle/somewhere similar, laying flat, if anything does slip off it’s less likely to hit the ground/me.

Also, you’ll be wanting to spin the wheels in the air. Might be stating the obvious but when doing the rears put it in gear, when doing the fronts put the handbrake on. When doing any chock the other three wheels. Possibly overkill with the chocks but I always do just in case, and I’m still alive. Although I would be even without the chocks, I’ve never had one slip off, but you never know. I did have a jack sink into the grass once, that was a pain. Do it on a hard surface!

And yes, do it with your son so he knows how for next time. And if you’ve never done it before you can learn together, often helps to have a second pair of hands anyway, and often someone else to suggest something, spot something you’ve missed etc.

I’d say go for it. I’ve changed pads and discs on older cars before and no real issues to speak of. I occasionally needed to use a long screwdriver in a fulcrum-type manner to shift the pistons in enough to get the new pads over the discs – I’ve since bought a piston compressor thing – but never anything particularly weird. Only thing I always found is that the brakes need a good few pumps to bite with the new pads/discs, so don’t just fit them and go straight off to the shops.

Keep an eye on Aldi/Lidl they often do acceptable quality (German) ones for £10.

Do they? Last ones I bought and returned looked like a craft and design failure project. The Silverline stands are far superior.

One thing nobody has touched on is bolt torques. Unless you know them you’ll be wanting a manual with them in. I’d imagine the equivalent 107 or Aygo manual will be the same.

Bolt torque for calliper mounts is a good point.  On something like an Aygo it’ll be less than you think, on my van it’s more than I’m capable of.

On many French small cars the discs are part of the hub bearing assembly which can be a pain (staked nuts, big sockets, often need a puller/big hitty things/determination of Boris the Blade).  If they’re separate as you suggest it’s an easy job.

whatever PSA/Toyota provide as jack will be $hit. As a first job I’d still use it, but buy a set of stands from a motor factor.  Only work on the car once its weight is fully supported on the stand. As others have said, dump the removed wheel under the cill. Even then, I’d not work under the car or crouch under the wheel arch until you’re familiar with jacking it, making sure it doesn’t move on the stands, how much they move when hitting them or applying big torque.  I can easily lift my cinq up off a stand torquing a hub bolt! The van doesn’t move so much, but it does “settle” particularly when lifting both sides, which can be unnerving.

If it’s got one the disc retaining screw will be seized and will strip. Have some appropriate drill bits ready to save a halfway trip to the shops.

Pro amateur tip.

Dismantle on Friday evening. That way you can work out the extra bits you need and get to the factors before they shut at 12.

Because taking everything off and realising at 1201 that you need a replacement doodab or doohickey for the one that just crumbled under your mighty gunshow and that the whole thing is a bust until they open on Monday is a right bastard.

It sounds like you’ve never done this before so you don’t have any particular knowledge or experience to bring to this.

I have, me and my Dad used to do my car when I was kid, but he was an engineer on merchant navy oil tankers so could find a solution to most things – as he points out, you can’t nip to screwfix for a bit when you’re halfway across the atlantic and a bearing goes, you fix stuff with what you have.

Any my son hopes to go to drama school and work in theatre – unless I need a soliloquy on the pain of a knuckle tap as the bolt yields, he’ll be **** all use 😉

The vids linked above make it look dead easy, and include retorque settings. But as you say –

If it’s got one the disc retaining screw will be seized and will strip

That’s the bit that taking it to the garage avoids, but I’m wondering if it’s worth £150 to avoid it!

Any my son hopes to go to drama school and work in theatre – unless I need a soliloquy on the pain of a knuckle tap as the bolt yields, he’ll be **** all use 😉

Have you seen the workings in a theatre? Spanners, knots, woodwork, electrics.

Its graft, even if he destined for the stage he would do well to get a feel for what effort goes in to getting stuff done so he can soliloquy to his hearts content without a parcan  twatting him in the noggin.

You don’t need the little torx screw. It just helps hold the disc in place while fitting the wheel. The force to mount the disc is provided by the wheel bolts/nuts. A lot of older cars have them snapped anyway. If it does snap it’s not a safety issue.

Edit – If you are anywhere near the Dorset/Hampshire border I be happy to do it for you.

Thoughts?

It sounds like you’ve never done this before so you don’t have any particular knowledge or experience to bring to this.

I did my first pads, discs, calipers, bleed on the road outside my house in the rain. Took all day, and only one trip to the motor factors. Nothing actually went wrong though, and the brakes worked perfectly for another 3 years or so, until i sold the car.

Nothings gone wrong on the 20+ sets i’ve done since. I hate doing drums though.

Edit – If you are anywhere near the Dorset/Hampshire border I be happy to do it for you.

Guildford so getting closer!!

Pads and discs is a great ‘slightly complex first job’ to do on a car.
I bet on a C1 it’ll be a doddle..

You’ll save a fortune, and I’d deffo do pads and discs – you’ll ahve to take the caliper off anyway (for teh pads) and once that is done, it’s easier changing a car disc than a bike disc!

improtantly (as has been said), use the jack only to lift it – NOT to hold it up.

DrP

I was very pleased to discover the Merc has a jacking point in the middle at both ends which makes life far easier. However your car might not have this. From a quick Google that may mean putting the axle stand next to the jack.

Axle stands are made for tubes, so you probably need an adapter to stop it crushing the seam on the sill that the scissor jack is designed to fit on. Something like this:

One word of caution…..

Don’t accidently wind the piston back the wrong way

Don’t ask me why I know that’s a bad idea!

Thankfully I managed to get it all back together but did need an emergency trip to Hellfrauds at 3.30pm on a Sunday for a brake bleeding kit!

Lots of sensible advice above.

A wirebrush, blowtorch, 6 point sockets and impact driver will be your friend.

WRT whether or not to replace the discs, the only way to know is by measuring.  A cheap mechanical micrometer will do the job.

You are looking to have enough thickness left in the disc to last the life of the set of pads you are fitting and equal wear on the two sides of a ventilated disc (probably not a concern on a c1)

Front discs can often (with extreme care) have the crusty lip ‘machined’ away with a flap disc on an angle grinder. I won’t describe the process fully as if you can’t work out how it can be done relatively safely, you’ll likely come a cropper trying!

As someone mentioned up there, the caliper should slide easily on the pin, if it doesn’t it is often corrosion of the caliper body on the outside of the rubber seal.  Carefully pull the seal out and clean the corrosion away (suitable sized drill bit or round file) before treating the clean surface to prevent further corrosion. Refit the seal and free motion will be restored.

Don’t use any hydrocarbon based grease on the  rubber bits – red rubber grease only!

I won’t echo the advice above but the best thing is to view the first time you do the job as the learning curve, don’t expect to save money when you include the time and tools.  What you will gain is the experience and confidence for future jobs.  I get my cars serviced by a garage (as it would affect their value too much to not have a stamp) but I replace consumables myself, which keeps costs down.  On one of our cars I can change all four pads in under an hour, but the first time I ever changed pads it probably took me 2 hours for one wheel.

The job looks easy. But!…….as always with car tinkering you can be one snapped bolt away from the car being out of commission and a whole world of mission creep and swearing.

So true. See my old Touran….multiple different tools and multiple seized bolts. What a nightmare.

That said, the old Yaris was a walk in the park and a 10 year old changed one side and a 9 year old the other while I watched…no seized bolts (despite being older and higher miles than the Touran) and only one tool to get the caliper free, which then pivoted out the way without removing fully. So, so simple and well though through.

The C1/Aygo/107 are a doddle to change the pads and discs. Cost me the grand sum of £38 for discs and pads via a motor factors. Push the piston back in with a bit of wood and a ‘lever’ (pry bar). Remember to open the reservoir cap, and pop some paper towel round it in-case it overflows when you push back in.

just the seized bolt fear.

It shouldn’t be too bad.

On cars with the disk on the outside of the hub, there aren’t usually any bolts to seize, it’s just sandwiched between the wheel and the hub. There might be a machine screw to locate it in place but it’s not torqued down.

Caliper / carrier bolts don’t generally seize because mechanics are sensible creatures and cover them in anti sieze.

Front brakes don’t generally need a wind back tool, that’s usually a handbrake thing.   Just squash the piston back with the old pad and a G-clamp.  Do open the bleed nipple to let the fluid out and then top up the reservoir, don’t push it back through the system, because a) the caliper is where all the crap is, b) the seals are designed to resist pressure and move one way, apparently they can flip if pushed back under pressure.

Go for the expensive / premium pads and decent disks.  I stuck EBC GreenStuff pads on my otherwise dull C-max and it was like hitting a brick wall. And wen you can replace them yourself for £30/set then the short life isn’t really a factor anymore.

Buy a set of slider bushings/pins, they’re quick to replace, cheap and for a DIY job not worth getting the calipers off, finding them sloppy then wasting a day waiting for replacements.

Don’t bother trying to manually bleed them, buy a gunson EZbleed, the one that hooks up to the spare tyre. It makes it a 10 minute job to single handedly do the whole car. No pedal pumping required.