Isn’t life frustrating at times

A short while ago my car’s brakes started to grind a little bit so I knew that they needed renewing. It’s difficult to see the Kia’s brake pads clearly without taking the wheels off so I thought that I might as well go ahead and order new pads for both the front and the back.

Only after they’d arrived did I give the discs more than a cursory once-over and after looking at and feeling them, I thought that I might as well do a proper job and replace those as well, because the rear ones especially appeared quite worn. The new ones took two or three days to come from Germany so yesterday I was all ready to go.

I started with the fronts because they were the most accessible the way that I’d parked the car and from the instructions in my workshop manual, they seemed to be the easier to do as well. It was surprisingly easy, actually, and when I removed the pads I was slightly annoyed to find that they were only half worn. I was even more annoyed when I got the discs off to find that they were a lot less worn than I’d originally thought and that really both pads and discs could have been left for a good few thousand kilometres more 😐

Is wasn’t the same story with the rears, though. The pads were indeed worn right down to the metal so this was where the grinding noise had been coming from. I’d tackled the most worn rear disc first, but when I got it off (and it was a bit of a pig to get off, actually) as for the fronts, I was surprised to see that it wasn’t as badly worn as I’d originally thought and still had a few thousand kilometres in it. But having bought new ones it would have been silly not to fit them, so I went ahead only to find that the ones I had received were too small in diameter!

I then had no choice but to fit just the new rear pads to keep the car on the road, but as the rear discs were not too badly worn, that was OK and the driving I’ve done since then has proven the brakes to be fine. And then I had to contact the supplier. And all credit to them, as they have accepted responsibility for the mishap but after supplying them with full details of my car, they have since confirmed that they can only accept the wrong items back for refund and cannot supply me with the correct ones!

So how frustrating! I’ve replaced the front brake discs and pads when I didn’t really need to and will be throwing away a full set with at least half of its life left in it. I did need to replace the rear pads but have had to team them up with worn discs that may or may not need replacing, but which I have no choice but to retain, at least for the time being. And looking at the big picture, I could have got to exactly where I am now just by buying and fitting a new set of rear brake pads and saving a wad of cash.

Ain’t life grand, it truly is 😕