Brake Repair Signs For You

If your neighbors can hear you coming from blocks away by the sound of your brakes squealing, it may be time to have a brake repair job done before your brakes finally give out. If your brakes do give out, you won’t be able to say you didn’t see it coming. Your car is designed to give you plenty of warning signs that something is wrong that needs attention. Your oil light comes on when your oil is low and your brakes will make a noise equivalent to fingernails on a blackboard when they are ready to go out completely.

Of course long before you hear the sound of metal on metal you will have other early warning signs that probably ignored. For example if you lightly touch your brake pedal and you almost fly through the windshield because your brakes grabbed- that is not just some really good brakes. That is actually an indicator that your brakes are not working properly. Another indicator that your brakes have gone south is indicated when you apply the brakes and the brakes feel “spongy” or the pedal seems to go down to far before any braking action is felt. Or you apply your brakes and the car pulls to one side or another pretty consistently. After awhile you adapt to your car and almost forget that your car isn’t driving correctly. Before you get to comfortable though you should realize how dangerous this type of adaptation really is.

Your brakes are one of the most important safety features of your car and not one that you can ignore for long. There are a lot of reasons you may need to have a brake repair job done starting with a loss of brake fluid. If your brake line has developed a leak you will run out of the hydraulic fluid necessary for your brakes to have enough pressure to stop. This can happen without any warning. Your only indicator that your fluid levels are dangerously low will be the feel of spongy brakes when you try to stop.

The most common brake repair job is to replace your brake shoes and/or your brake pads. These wear down over time and that means you will begin to hear that metal to metal screeching sound when you apply pressure to the brake pedal.

Another part of your brake system that may need occasional brake repair is your rotors. These can get worn down over time with enough usage but the good news with rotors is the fact that they are designed to have an extended life. By shaving the rotors down to get rid of nicks and grooves that develop, your mechanic may be able to extend your rotor life a bit longer.

You may not know what type of brake repair job you need until you take your car in and have a mechanic look at it, but you know you can’t keep driving your car until your brakes are safe.