On Friday afternoon, driving down to the West Country the rear brakes seized on my Plus 4. The initial warning / symptom prior to the brakes seizing on was a soft brake pedal at the first push then on the second push the brakes felt solid and the car stopped fine. The (what turned out to be) very good news was I was only 2 miles from Berrybrook Morgan and their top mechanic Bradley. I nursed the car into Berrybrook followed by a nasty burning smell, not just from very hot brake shoes, it was a bit scary. The bad news for Bradley was I arrived just as he was clearing up to go home. Bradley instantly knew what the problem was and replaced both rear brake slave cylinders together with the shoes. The cylinders had seized solid. Bradley completed the task in about 2 hours, all in his own time, going way beyond the call of duty, and we were on the road again at about 7.00pm. There are two lessons to learn from this story 1. If you are going to breakdown then make sure you are close to Berrybrook Morgan, they could have easily said “leave the car here and we will make a start on Monday” but they were as keen to see me back on the road as I was to get going, absolutely amazing service, and 2. when Dave tells us to replace the brake fluid every two years, make sure you do it or, like me, you end up with corroded brake cylinders and the potential of a much sadder tale than this one.
