Of all the safe­ty fea­tures in­stalled in your ve­hi­cle, from airbags to seat­belts to re­in­forced steel frame, noth­ing is more crit­i­cal than your brak­ing sys­tem. Your brakes are the on­ly thing stand­ing be­tween you and a dis­as­trous col­li­sion. The most com­mon wear-and-tear com­po­nent of this sys­tem is the brake pad, which safe­ly clamps down on the met­al ro­tor to stop your tires from spin­ning. Know­ing the warn­ing signs of a fail­ing brake pad can quite lit­er­al­ly save your life.

Your car is de­signed to warn you when it needs help. The most com­mon and ear­ly sign of brake pad wear is a high-pitched squeak­ing or squeal­ing noise when you press the ped­al. This is not a mal­func­tion; brake pads have tiny met­al “wear in­di­ca­tors” built in­to them. When the pad gets dan­ger­ous­ly thin, this met­al piece touch­es the ro­tor, in­ten­tion­al­ly mak­ing that loud squeal to tell you it is time for a re­place­ment.

If you ig­nore the squeal, it will even­tu­al­ly turn in­to a harsh, metal­lic grind­ing noise. If you hear grind­ing, your brake pads are com­plete­ly gone, and the bare met­al caliper is cur­rent­ly goug­ing deep grooves in­to your brake ro­tors. This dras­ti­cal­ly re­duces your abil­i­ty to stop and turns a sim­ple pad re­place­ment in­to a high­ly ex­pen­sive, ma­jor me­chan­i­cal re­pair.

Oth­er signs in­clude a “spongy” feel­ing when you press the brake ped­al, your steer­ing wheel vi­o­lent­ly vi­brat­ing when you try to slow down at high­way speeds, or your car pulling sharply to the left or right when brak­ing.

Your next step for suc­cess:

Nev­er gam­ble with your stop­ping pow­er. If you hear a squeak, it is time to seek out a fa­cil­i­ty of­fer­ing ad­vanced di­ag­nos­tic ser­vices to check your en­tire brak­ing and sus­pen­sion sys­tem.

En­sure you choose a garage that is an of­fi­cial­ly reg­is­tered VTS (Ve­hi­cle Test­ing Sta­tion) for your pre-in­spec­tion checks; they know ex­act­ly the safe­ty tol­er­ances your brakes must meet.

Be­cause life is busy, look for a one-stop shop that can source pre­mi­um, high-qual­i­ty brake pads and of­fers an ex­clu­sive pick-up and drop-off ser­vice, re­pair­ing your brakes while you con­tin­ue with your day un­both­ered!

Pro­fes­sion­al Garage Ltd is a sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion, woman-owned au­to­mo­tive busi­ness based in Laven­tille.

Vis­it: 25 Pash­ley Street, Laven­tille

Call: 625-7725

What­sApp: 487-5047