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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

I could have been killed!


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Took my car to a supra specialist in bournemouth yesterday (tues) for a full c service. Dropped it off at 8am and got a phonecall at about 2 thinking i was going to be told "it's ready to be picked up." That wasn't the case. Instead i got "I'm not sure if you're aware of this but you're two front brake calipers are cracked". I wasn't aware of this, obviously, so i said "so what's the score then?". He said "I can't let you take it home in this condition as the brakes may fail and i can't get new calipers til the morning." So basically i had to spend the night in bournemouth (£50) and cancel clients for today (weds) which lost me serious money. Not as much as the bill for the repair cost me though...£800! That includes 250 for the full service and the brake calipers were £225 each :(

 

On closer inspection of the calipers and with the explanation from the mechanic it was clear that this was a "bodge". The car had new brakes fitted before i bought it (when the previous owner had the car) and basically both bleed nipples had been tightened far too much and in doing so had caused a crack on each caliper (yes they were that tight!) Not only that, someone had obsiously realised this had caused a leak as there was what can only be described as "goo" stuck around the cracks. Whoever did it shouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing they'd done such a dangerous thing, the implications don't bear thinking about. Plus it's an auto so slowing down without brakes in a bad situation would have been even trickier. I'm gonna find out where it was done and make sure nobody goes there.

 

On the plus side, i was told that other than that the car is in a1 condition. Such a shame that some w****r did such a thing.

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Bad news buddy? Hope you find out were they were done?

Also the calipers, NIC does the UKs for 360 all in? sorry to rub that in also!!

 

I know I could have gotten them cheaper but i doubt they could have got there by this morning. Dont froget i couldn't get home (portsmouth) This means the money i lose from cancelling more clients would far outweigh the money saved on the brakes.

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Were the calipers the smaller 2 pot fronts? As these are known to be prone to cracking over time.

 

If you don't won't a similar problem in future then I would recommend upgrading to the larger 4 pot fronts, these give far superior braking and I have never heard of any reports of these cracking.

 

I have fronts in stock if needed, see details here

 

http://mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?t=98436

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Were the calipers the smaller 2 pot fronts? As these are known to be prone to cracking over time.

 

 

 

They were but they were fitted less than 2 months ago. It was clear the cracks had been caused by the bleed nipple tightening. I noticed the brakes were squeaking a lot before ( they dont at all now) but i just thought they were still being run in. I guess i was wrong. :(

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It's clay motors in winton. They are toyota and honda specialists. Been going there ever since i had my gt4 and now the supe. The main guy, darren, knows them inside out. This is their site http://www.claymotors.co.uk

 

There was a TT engine sitting outside today. Apparently some guy upped his boost to 1.x bar without any other mods and blew both his turbos! They got a replacement engine for £1500

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Glad nothing happened to you!

 

I think that cracking around the bleed nipple may be a common occurrence on the j-spec front calipers, certainly the early ones. I’ve seen this mentioned several times on the forum before.

 

I, myself, had two calipers crack (see pics below). One of them definitely cracked of it’s own accord without the bleed nipple having been touched. I know this because I change the pads and examined my brakes before I took my car on holiday last year and they were fine, I found them leaking when I came back.

 

I got my dad to examine the calipers, he used to do defect and accident investigation for aircraft and is quite familiar with metallurgy issues. It was his opinion that there were probably defects in the casting, although over tightening the bleed nipple may have shown up this weakness.

 

We actually wrote to Toyota to highlight this potential safety issue – as we didn’t believe it was an isolated incident. As you can see their reply wasn’t terribly helpful!

Caliper1.jpg

Caliper2.jpg

Caliper3.jpg

Toyota Brake Letter.jpg

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Actually, I mis-quoted my dad a bit, I've just dug out his email. This is what we told Toyota:

 

"The bleed valve wall thickness may be in question and should be investigated, as indeed the potential for presence of stress initiators for the cracking resultant from either the quality of material as cast, the heat treatment, and/or other material or machining flaws."

 

It is also interesting that Toyota think that the brake warning light will help. I know they are dual circuit brakes, but I wouldn't want to rely one side only under heavy braking. There is also the possibly that this crack go undetected as a latent defect, as there is no or very little fluid loss initially.

 

We told Toyota:

 

"The cracking on the boss is almost completely around the whole circumference of the bleed nipple, final rupture and complete detachment of the boss would seem a distinct possibility for this item under heavy braking pressure".

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:eek: Scary stuff

 

What i might add is the fact that the cracks were severe, much worse than in those pictures, literally across the whole caliper. The fact that they were only done a couple of months earlier and that the cracks were covered in a gooey substance still leads me to believe this is human error as opposed to mechanical fault.

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Guest gzaerojon
Glad nothing happened to you!

 

I think that cracking around the bleed nipple may be a common occurrence on the j-spec front calipers, certainly the early ones. I’ve seen this mentioned several times on the forum before.

 

I, myself, had two calipers crack (see pics below). One of them definitely cracked of it’s own accord without the bleed nipple having been touched. I know this because I change the pads and examined my brakes before I took my car on holiday last year and they were fine, I found them leaking when I came back.

 

I got my dad to examine the calipers, he used to do defect and accident investigation for aircraft and is quite familiar with metallurgy issues. It was his opinion that there were probably defects in the casting, although over tightening the bleed nipple may have shown up this weakness.

 

We actually wrote to Toyota to highlight this potential safety issue – as we didn’t believe it was an isolated incident. As you can see their reply wasn’t terribly helpful!

 

 

wtf!! so a Japanese car company doesn't have access to technical information relating to Japanese models??

 

 

i think that letter would've made more sense if they'd just wiped there arse with it :rolleyes:

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We found this happened to my wifes Supra after a trackday last year.

 

Prior to the trackday, I had replaced the brake fluid on both of our cars. (As well as transmission fluid, diff oil etc, etc.) When bleeding the brakes, I always just 'nip' up the bleed nipples - they cartainly were not over tightened and there was no sign of cracking when I bled them.

 

But a few days after the trackday, the warning light came on and we found the fault on the passenger side front caliper. (J-spec. 1993)

 

This is obviously a common thing to happen to at least the early cars and if you drive your car in a 'spirited' manner regularly, I suggest you keep an eye on this. Or of course, you could change to UK brakes.

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