ZB Commodore - Warning - diesel brake pads sticking to the disc rotor?

[Skylarking]

Are they the original pads, or Chinese replacements made from grass clippings and Superglue ?

Original may indeed be made in China so hopefully the manufacturer had good QC/QA

 

[vc commodore]

As long as you follow guidance written within the owners manual, you shouldn’t have issues.

If the owners manual doesn’t make any references related to rain, wet brakes and such stuff around when/if to use the park brake, then it should be safe to apply the park brakes whenever parking. In fact it’s a legal requirement to apply park brakes when parking on public roads and public carparks (I don’t know if that extends to parking on private property)…

If there is an absence of such owner handbook advice, I’d say that means the dealer can’t blame owner behaviour as being the cause of the brake failure. So in these instances, if there is no statements around park brake use in the owners manual, I’d be pushing for warranty repair…

With this problem I'd be pushing for a warranty replacement.....Doesn't matter if a statement is in the owners manual or not...I have never seen brake pads descinergrate like that....

I had my 4 brakes lock on with my VC, to the point smoke was pouring off the rotors and those brake pads are still in 1 piece...In fact I still have the front pads in the car, with the backing plate a brown colour.....

 

[John K Harrison]

Yeh mate. They must be rubbish pads. I ended up getting a set of ceramic DBA replacement pads. The guy from brakesdirect.com.au said it becoming common with newer cars. It's a worry.

 

[Jack GS]

Hopefully pads are not going in that direction. It's bad enough most OE tires don't make it past 50km. Here in the States, my brother has a 2016 Chevrolet 2500 with over 160km on the clock. It's a farm truck that sees frequent towing, with and without trailer brakes to assist deceleration. The pads aren't worn down more than 40%.

Maybe the OEMs have done some risk analysis to determine where they can cheap out on pad quality, our Insignias possibly, and where they cannot, heavy duty trucks.

 

[J_D 2.0]

Hopefully pads are not going in that direction. It's bad enough most OE tires don't make it past 50km. Here in the States, my brother has a 2016 Chevrolet 2500 with over 160km on the clock. It's a farm truck that sees frequent towing, with and without trailer brakes to assist deceleration. The pads aren't worn down more than 40%.

Maybe the OEMs have done some risk analysis to determine where they can cheap out on pad quality, our Insignias possibly, and where they cannot, heavy duty trucks.

Heavy duty trucks are normally subject to rigorous cost analysis by the companies who buy them so need to be built to a higher standard otherwise those companies wouldn’t buy them.

Passenger vehicles on the other hand are mostly limited to “look at the shiny thing“ and “what’s the APR?“ so aren’t built to anywhere near the same standard.

It’s quite telling how stupid people are when buying a new car when the shittest car companies with the worst JD Power ratings survive (Jeep, Renault, Peugeot, Land Rover, etc) but car companies that actually used to build quality products (Holden, SAAB, Nissan of old, Ford Australia) end up being either bought out by the shite car companies and forced to build shite or completely shut down because consumers are so fickle they don’t give a shite about quality, just the amount of shiny things and the APR and repayments.

*End rant*

 

[Skylarking]

Haha, you had me until…

… car companies that actually used to build quality products (Holden, SAAB, Nissan of old, Ford Australia)…

In my experience, Holden and Holden dealers back in the 80’s were crap at customer support and still cheated customers to make a buck. Sadly they were not alone in such behaviour which is why many dealers (of all sorts) were called stealerships That reputation was earned

 

[greenacc]

Doubt it's got anything to do with the age or type of car. It's just **** quality parts and lack of use causing problems that would not occur if driven every day like it was designed for.
The Bendix pads might do the same thing under the same circumstances. I had a case of pad sticking (Bendix) in the same way not too long ago. Might have been during lockdown when we weren't allowed to go anywhere cos we would instantly die.. Lucky the pads just snapped off the rotor face with a bang and came away cleanly. I could see the outline of the pad on the rotor face for a couple days after. If I left it sit there longer it might have ended up like yours.
If you have to park it in the rain then another short drive soon after when the weather clears should sort it out.

 

[J_D 2.0]

Haha, you had me until…
In my experience, Holden and Holden dealers back in the 80’s were crap at customer support and still cheated customers to make a buck. Sadly they were not alone in such behaviour which is why many dealers (of all sorts) were called stealerships That reputation was earned

Well Holden and Ford Australia were operating on shoestring budgets in the 80s, hence the Button plan.

They both were really getting into their stride in the late 90s early 2000s though with the VT Commodore and the BA Falcon. The bastardry of the stealerships probably let down both brands in the market even though they were producing decent sedans at that point.

I can’t really comment on the Falcon as I’ve only even owned the POS that was the EA Falcon but on the Commodore side I’ve owned plenty of them and nearly all of them were flogged out examples without full logbooks and I’ve not had any major problems.

The only one I ever got anywhere near new was the SV6 which only has 50,000kms on it when I bought it. It’s over 320,000kms now without any major problems. The gearbox was doing some weird shifting at 300,000kms but changing the solenoids and doing a couple of fluid changes seems to have fixed that.

Unfortunatley everyone who buys a new car is looking to offload it to the next sucker so they don’t care about the longevity of the vehicle. That creates a perverse incentive where the car companies make the shitest car that they can sell as long as it’s got enough bells and whistles, not the best and most reliable car that they can make for the money.

 

[Jack GS]

Unfortunatley everyone who buys a new car is looking to offload it to the next sucker so they don’t care about the longevity of the vehicle. That creates a perverse incentive where the car companies make the shitest car that they can sell as long as it’s got enough bells and whistles, not the best and most reliable car that they can make for the money.

Yeah I'm starting to realize that myself. I've always liked the new and shiny things. These past couple years have shown me where things are headed with an unsustainable reliance on semi conductor chips, IOT, and complicated software systems. I'm finding myself becoming more attracted to the cars and trucks I grew up with that only depended on mere relays and switches.

Never thought I'd be sitting here in my 20s muttering to myself, "ahhh, simpler times."

On topic... I store my GS for the winter with the parking brake applied and have never had any issues. Conditions have always been dry when it's applied. I suppose that's why I've gotten away with it.

 

[stooge]

The hand brake is inside the disc. It does not use the pads on the outside of the disc.

that is what i thought but i cant find a replacement shoe for the 2018+ insignia which has me wondering did they change it to use the main caliper?

it is service sunday for my zb and i can confirm that the zb is different to the vf.
the zb does not use the disc/drum setup for the parkbrake it uses an electronic actuator to push the piston on the caliper to lock the disc using the main pads.

Spoiler: pictures