Brake System Maintenance Tips
Archer Volkswagen Car Care Tips: 5 Brake System Components on Your Car that Need Regular Maintenance
By maintaining your car properly, you can help it to last longer and serve you better over the years and miles to come. One of the most important systems on your car, naturally, is the braking system. On this page, we'll familiarize you with five parts of your car's braking system that will need to be maintained. For the most part, brake maintenance is as simple as getting your vehicle periodically inspected by our factory trained technicians here at the Archer Volkswagen service center.
5. Brake Fluid
Over time, the brake fluid that makes your brakes do their thing when you press the pedal may need to be flushed out and replaced. Brake fluid slowly absorbs water from the atmosphere, lowering the overall boiling point of the fluid in the system. Under hard braking, contaminated brake fluid can boil -- turning into a gas, which doesn't put pressure on the brakes themselves to stop your car. If you experience the phenomenon known as brake fade, the contaminated fluid in your brake lines may need to be replaced.
4. Anti-Lock Brakes
We can't point out any one component of your anti-lock brake system that needs to be regularly replaced, but the ABS system features many small electrical components -- like relays, fuses and wheel speed sensors -- that are known to fail. When they do, you might see the ABS warning light come on in the dashboard. Just swing by our service center where we can quickly and easily replace components like these with new, long-lasting OEM parts.
3. Emergency Brake/Parking Brake
It's something everybody's done before. You take off down the road and it takes you a few minutes to realize: you've still got the parking brake on! Driving while the parking brake is engaged can wear it down rapidly. Just like the regular brakes on your car, the parking brake features a removable lining with friction material that keeps your car in place. Over time, or due to driving too far with the brake engaged, this material will wear down. You may need the parking brake linings replaced if your parking brake won't activate.
2. Brake Rotors
It's the brake rotors that your brake calipers clamp down onto, in order to generate friction and slow down your car. From hard braking, damage or debris, your car's brake rotors can suffer damage. Their surface is perfectly smooth when they are first installed on your car, but if they get damaged, the brake pads can pass over the uneven spots on the brake rotors, causing the whole vehicle to shudder and shake under braking. That's why they'll need to be replaced occasionally
1. Brake Pads/Shoes
The most important thing you can do to maintain your car's brakes is have the brake linings replaced regularly. The brake linings -- brake pads on disc brakes and brake shoes on drum brakes -- are coated with a friction material that slows down your car. But that friction material wears away over time from thousands of stops and starts. Your brake linings need to be replaced before this material wears away entirely.