Brakes: Part 1 (Test drive)

The first part of a good brake job starts with a little Q&A. Your mechanic should ask you some questions to better determine what the problem may be. It helps a lot if you are already prepared to answer these questions. A few of them might be:

* What kind of noise do you hear? Squealing? Grinding? Groaning? Clicking or clacking? Humming?

* When do you hear the noise? All the time? Only when you brake? On cold mornings? In reverse? Only when you brake and turn gently to the left (sounds dumb, but believe me, this helps)?

* Do you feel anything unusual when you brake? Vibration in the front of the vehicle? Pulsation in the pedal? Side to side movement in the steering wheel? Soft pedal? Sinking pedal? No pedal?

* When is the last time you had brakes done? Has anyone looked at this yet?

In my shop, the Service Manager will communicate this to the technician who will then be attuned to this information when he takes the vehicle on a test drive, the second step in a good brake job.

Unless it is painfully obvious there is a problem as soon as we step on the brake, the technician should drive the vehicle and try to reproduce the problem under various conditions. A good technician understands the sounds different components of the vehicle make and knows what certain problems feel like. Many times we have test driven vehicles to find a brake problem only to realize there is actually a suspension problem (or vice versa). If we cannot reproduce the problem we normally ask our client to drive the vehicle with the technician in the passenger seat.

This test drive is critical to pointing the technician a certain direction, and to identify any other problems that may be contributing to the complaint. Without the test drive, there is a strong possibility that your problem will not be solved, and you will be stuck paying for needless work.