Just thought I'd relay this to ya'all and see...
I recently hired an extra hand around the shop to help get things ready for our summer season. This guy seemed mechanicaly inclined and extreemly willing to help out around the shop. I had to take a couple days vacation so I lined him out with what needs done, orderd all the parts in advance and left it at that.
When I came back to work, he and I were sitting at the computer logging all the maintenance for the previous week, and he tells me that the secretary had brought her Expedition in because the front brakes were squeeking, and that he had doused the rotors in WD-40 and sent her on her way, because "the cab company used to do that all the time".
Now, I'm not a smart man, I dont pretend to be. But, using a lubricant on a device that uses friction to work dosent seem right to me, so I give him my patented "are you freaking kidding me?" look. Nope, he aint kidding. I argued my point, might as well as been talking to my dog. I e-mailed WD-40, and they replied that "it is not one of their 2000 recomended uses" and further gave me a list of chemicals to remove the WD-40. I showed him this e-mail and got a shrug.

 

wow, what a idiot he was

 

crazily enough, thats actually true... people do that. stops the squeaks too... also stops the stopping (no, thats not a paradox)

 

Yeah because squeaking isn't your squelch tab or anything...it isn't like your brakes need to be changed at that point. LOL. He would be fired help in my shop after that incident.

 

Freakin genius.

I know WD-40 is highly flammable. Isn't it possible that the brake rotors could get hot enough to ignite the WD-40? Aside from the whole not being able to stop thing.

 

WOW! Unbelievable.

Hope this guy is now working for someone else?

 

Holy Smokes! I know they do a lot of hack work at Taxi Cab garages to keep a Taxi on-the-street ... but, spraying Brake Rotors to eliminate a squeak is pretty lame. Make that ... VERY lame.

I hope the customer doesn't have a bad experience as a result of having the brakes lubed. I also hope that the customer doesn't know that WD-40 got sprayed-on the brakes.

It's a stunt like that ... that can start getting around "Word-of-mouth" and put a real hurt on new business. I call the customer and have them come back for a brake inspection ... unload a couple of cans of DiscBrakeKleen on those brakes ... road test them for squeaks (and function) ... then, chamfer the pads before I sent them on their way.

Do the good will before any bad rep kicks-in!

 

When my dad worked for Ford in the very early 80's, a construction company brought in a 77 F-150 with 80,000 miles complaining about how loudly it knocked and just flat wasn't running right. My dad went to check the oil... NOTHING!!!!. My dad tried to find the maintanence records... NOTHING. Turns out this thing had gone 80,000 miles nad still had the oil in it that came from the factory. For 2 years, they poured a bottle of STP in it every morning and drove off. My dad pulled the drain plug... nothing happened.... He could stick his finger in the hole and feel a gob of something. He dropped hte oil pan... the oil was just sludge. He had to rebuild teh engine, as you could imagine.

 

Yep, this could happen...it has the parts of the fire triangle (now the fire tetrahedron) Heat, fuel, oxygen, all it needs is the chemical reaction and BAM, we have fire. If you figure that FoMoCo (I didn't want to say the F-word here) had issues with their crown victoria police interceptors with rear brakes heating up and catching fire WITHOUT help from WD-40, what could happen if there had been WD on them? Good Call, Taz.

 

Ouch, I remember asking my dad when I was little if he put oil on the brakes and he sat me down and told me how they work and that oil would really screw 'em up.