406oc.co.uk

on a 2.0 HDi 110, do the brakes and clutch share fluid? my haynes manual doesnt seem to be very specific about this

I'm getting my car serviced next week and i'm havng new EBC discs and pads fitted so i thought i should have the fluid changed / upgraded too

is it expensive to change and whats the best dot fluid to use??

Cheers
Matt.

They do indeed share the same fluid!

DOT 4 off the shelf stuff should be ok unless you drive like the Stig - then there's 5.1 synthetic stuff but I don't think there's much point on these cars really.

DOT 4, DOT 5.1 if you're feeling extravagant but never DOT 5 (unless you feel like cleaning the system out first.)

I got completely hacked off on the Honest John forums with this one. Manufacturers recommend changing it ever 2-3 years but there's guys on there who say things like "I've been driving for 35 years and never changed any brake fluid", and are completely unconvinecd by people who say they've had hairy moments when the brake fluid boiled coming down a mountain.

Anyway, I changed mine last year as testing it is now a part of the MOT here and mine just about scraped past. All the time I was changing it I was thinking how much I hate jobs which don't make any difference. Then I drove it... I'm never neglecting it again - 100% improvement.

Should cost about 40 quid. Umm, on early HDi's the clutch hydraulics are sealed but it shares the brake fluid on later cars, best way to see is have a look at the reservoir, if it's shared you'll have a little pipe coming off of it.

thanks that's really helpful

the previous owner, had the cheapest unmatching tyres, and has left the brakes to wear down and even replaced new cheapo pads on worn out discs, so i'd assume he's not bothered to change the fluid when needed, so i'm gonna be sensible and have it changed at the same time.

how much fluid would i need? I might as well get it myself to go with brake components, I can trust the garage use enough not to keep the bottles and fill mine up with cheapo stuff

Matt wrote:
how much fluid would i need? I might as well get it myself to go with brake components, I can trust the garage use enough not to keep the bottles and fill mine up with cheapo stuff

Oh yeah, they are going to steal your fluid to save a few pence!

All brake fluid is good stuff these days, even dot 3 has a high enough spec for normal use.

Buy a 1litre bottle, dot 4 is synthetic anyway, you may notice a label or writing on the master cylinder which may say "minimum dot 3" fluid.

Believe it or not, we in the garage trade don't like trying to kill people by bodging such things as changing brake fluid.

If you trust them to work on your car, surely you can trust them to replace your fluid.Why don't you ask them what spec their fluid is? At my normal suppliers, you can't buy less than dot 4 anyway.

Aye, I'd definitely recommend getting someone with a 2-post lift to do it. Really buggered up my back when I did the job last year. Jack up, wheel off, bleed, wheel on, jack down, repeat 4 times, cry in pain

Very grateful the job got done though, the brakes were horribly imprecise and ABS was kicking in all the time. Lots better now, but I still need to replace the front discs and pads after the garage I took it to did a right botch job on them (instead of just skimming the original discs like I would have asked before they went and charged me stupid money for new bargain basement crap I didn't want ). Several months later the things are warped and still squealing whether I'm touching the pedal or not

mjb wrote:Aye, I'd definitely recommend getting someone with a 2-post lift to do it. Really buggered up my back when I did the job last year. Jack up, wheel off, bleed, wheel on, jack down, repeat 4 times, cry in pain

Very grateful the job got done though, the brakes were horribly imprecise and ABS was kicking in all the time. Lots better now, but I still need to replace the front discs and pads after the garage I took it to did a right botch job on them (instead of just skimming the original discs like I would have asked before they went and charged me stupid money for new bargain basement crap I didn't want ). Several months later the things are warped and still squealing whether I'm touching the pedal or not

Why would you want your discs skimmed? Nobody does that these days, new discs are cheaper than skimming, and are yours not vented discs? You don't skim vented discs.

You should have made them change them if you didn't want them fitted, and why didn't you ask them to change warped discs under warranty?

Warped discs would judder, not very safe are they?

Did you really get a pass on your mot with warped discs, my mot garage wouldn't pass them.

Chances are, if they are squealing even though not braking, the pads are seized in their slots, or the pivots are seized on the calipers.

If you accepted a botch job, you have only yourself to blame, all my customers have a say as to whether the job is acceptable, but more importantly, all my work is checked before the customer gets it back and is fully gauranteed.

jasper5 wrote:Why would you want your discs skimmed? Nobody does that these days, new discs are cheaper than skimming, and are yours not vented discs? You don't skim vented discs.

The MOT tester was being an arse and failed me on a small lip (about 1mm). I was skint so just shoving it in 5th on a lift and filing the buggers down would have done for me as next month i could have bought some quality parts. Same with the perfectly legal tyres they scrapped - I wanted to replace them the month after with quality ones, but I got to pay £100 for a pair of ditchfinders I neither wanted nor needed. The ditchfinders I've since discovered are only rated up to 120mph or something like that - a week or so after the MOT I was doing 150mph for extended periods on the autobahn with passengers!

You should have made them change them if you didn't want them fitted, and why didn't you ask them to change warped discs under warranty?

I don't want them anywhere near my car ever again. The warped discs are the ones they needlessly fitted, and they're warped because they're badly fitting parts.

Did you really get a pass on your mot with warped discs, my mot garage wouldn't pass them.

The brakes were fine when it went in - just had a 1mm lip which it got failed on as well as an indicator which apparently wasn't orange enough... The bulb didn't get changed and it still looks plenty orange to me, and a pair of tyres which were worn to 1.4mm at the very edges of the tread - ie perfectly legal albeit not perfect. The garage took it on themselves to fit sh*t discs and sh*t pads. When I eventually got the car back I was getting 10mpg less because the brakes were tight. Twats probably used a hammer to get the pads in the calipers.

The reason they're warped is because they were rubbing so much that every time I came to a stop I may have just driven down the side of a mountain then held the car on the footbrake for 5 minutes... Even though I always hold the car on the handbrake...

If you accepted a botch job, you have only yourself to blame, all my customers have a say as to whether the job is acceptable, but more importantly, all my work is checked before the customer gets it back and is fully gauranteed.

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I needed my car back, they'd already taken the best part of a week to f*ck me over for twice the cost I was told. I literally picked it up as they were closing for the weekend on a Friday (through luck - they didn't bother to call me or anything) and I had to drive across the country the following day. I asked for the old bits, but apparently they'd thrown them.

If someone's going to hold your car for a week and rip you off over parts, there's bugger all you can do. Ask for a car back with no brakes or tyres? Leave it with them another week while they attack the bodywork with an angle grinder "it was already like that"?

Just because you work in a garage that may do things properly, don't assume everyone else does. Kwik-fit for example took 5 visits to get a back box correct on my tubby estate. The idiots there tried to tell me an oval chrome tailpipe at a 30 degree angle was correct, even though it was sticking 6" from the bumper, even further back than the towbar! There are incompetent people and conmen in every trade - yours is no exception.

Come to think of it, I never had any issues with the steering until I took it for that MOT...

It's true there are some bad guys out there which taint our opinions of all of them. You also get bad car dealers who over charge, cover things up, let you down etc.

My garage is really good (80% of his customers are women) he explains everything to you, rings you up at work, shows you the parts afterwards and everything.

In my experience it's good to go to your garage with a list of jobs you want and an idea of cost beforehand. Her indoors Astra is due for it's MOT and service in March and I'll get him to replace all the discs and pads which I can start planning for now rather than get to find out later as a surprise as I can see they need changing already.

Above all find someone you get along with and stick with them.

Just to clear things up, I don't work for anyone, I own a one man car repair business, have done for 28 years.

Mjb, I understand that you had a bad experience, I truly sympathise.

I got annoyed by someone suggesting that a garage would swap brake fluid for dodgy stuff, these days you can't buy low spec fluid.

There is, as always, two sides to these things, last week, I had two situations that went against me due to dodgy customers.

I did a service and mot on a Nissan Micra, took it for mot first, when my mot guy put it in the brake rollers and switched the drivers window to open, the glass fell out, needless to say, I had to repair the window fault before I could go back, the guy refused to pay for fixing the window, despite the fact he didn't tell me it was faulty, he said it was my responsibility!

I serviced and mot,d a Nissan Almera, took if for test after servicing it, on my way back, the management light came on, can't find the fault yet, but customer says it's my fault, I have to pay....I did nothing that could cause the fault.

In both cases, to keep customer goodwill, I have stood the cost.

There are also the ones that book jobs in, then don't turn up, people that book a small service, you allow time for a small service and they turn up on the day with a long list of faults for you to fix at the same time....tell me at the booking in, not when you drop off the car!!

There are the ones that get annoyed and slag you off when you say the fault may be X, but turns out to be Y and more costly, automatically you are trying to rip them off....we do not have psychic powers.

The guy in the pub, despite having no experience or qualifications, always knows better than someone with vast experience and good qualifications.

I have an open mind about this forum, I don't know everything about the 406, but I'm willing to listen to owners with personal experience.Sometimes I wish my experience was respected, sadly, that does not appear to be the case.

I will continue to keep up with things, but I will refrain from posting.

Keep up the good work, the forum is useful.

I have already picked up useful tips from members

You seem very helpful to me and we need some members with hand-on experience of mechanicals like you so please keep at it.

Your right about customers though - spot on in fact, there are some horrible customers for sure.

My garage has taken to 'checking out' everything on somone's car before they touch it to reduce the risk of being blamed for some other problem. Trouble is it gets worse as people's money runs out

jasper5 wrote:I have an open mind about this forum, I don't know everything about the 406, but I'm willing to listen to owners with personal experience.Sometimes I wish my experience was respected, sadly, that does not appear to be the case.

I will continue to keep up with things, but I will refrain from posting.

Don't be daft. I reckon you're probably going to be one of the most clued guys in here when it comes to mechanical stuff, especially if something comes up that none of us have model-specific experience with. Chances are if I were about to tackle the cambelt on an XU10J2TE you'd have told me straight away that I wouldn't be able to do it without air tools to get the crankshaft pulley bolt off. I didn't know that, and nobody else on here did, and I wasted an afternoon as a result... and (if I weren't going to just ignore it and let it snap) I'd be looking to someone like you to give advice on a V6 cambelt change. I bet there's not many people on here who'd be able to offer help on a clutch change to people who've never done it before either...

On the other hand, niz is the best person to ask about turbos, welly with aircon, and i've probably spent the most time studying D8 electrics (the Peugeot diagrams, not the Haynes Book of Lies ). There's also lots of people who've done most jobs with suspension, brakes, interiors, etc...

So keep posting, but if someone doesn't respect your authoritaaaah, don't throw a paddy, just help them to go through the diagnostic steps to see how you're right. And for gawd's stake, don't assume all garages do work to the same standard you do and don't take it so personally when someone suggests a garage might be less than perfect. The garage that screwed me probably would just stick your brake fluid on the shelf and "forget" to change it... There's good guys and bad guys doing every job in the world. Except debt collectors, bailiffs, mobile speed camera operators, and Home Secretaries. They're all arseholes.


As an aside, do you think setting up CCTV in your workshop would pay for itself in terms of proving you weren't the cause of a customer's car falling to bits?

Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it.

One side note about the crankshaft pulley nuts.....there is a method I use that is not conventional and anyone using this method does so at their own risk....

Get the correct socket and a T bar, fit the socket onto the nut with the T bar resting against the driveshaft, make sure you are in neutral then turn the ignition key and allow the T bar to take the load against the driveshaft, this will shock the nut free, you may have to trun the key a few times to screw the nut back far enough for you to then get a ratchet on the socket and undo it as normal.....

This method will work even when an air gun won't, It has never failed me, so much so that I never use an air gun to undo a crankshaft pulley nut...except for Honda engines, which are fitted the "wrong" way round.

One side note about the crankshaft pulley nuts.....there is a method I use that is not conventional and anyone using this method does so at their own risk....

Get the correct socket and a T bar, fit the socket onto the nut with the T bar resting against the driveshaft, make sure you are in neutral then turn the ignition key and allow the T bar to take the load against the driveshaft, this will shock the nut free, you may have to trun the key a few times to screw the nut back far enough for you to then get a ratchet on the socket and undo it as normal.....

That was the method my local 'Good Garage Scheme' garage had to use to undo mine last week. Same basic principle except he said they used a breaker bar resting against the wishbone. Also, like MJB said before, you know your stuff so don't be going hiding somewhere!

jasper5 wrote: I got annoyed by someone suggesting that a garage would swap brake fluid for dodgy stuff, these days you can't buy low spec fluid.

it clearly wasnt a serious comment, relax me old mucka, i wasnt making any insinuations regarding your integrity, just playing around

I've had my share of bad experiences with bodgers, so I appreciate the value of an honest mechanic