Brakes on a Burton upon Trent truck have a demanding life. Loaded warehouse and drinks trailers leave the edge of town for the A38, come back through junctions and roundabouts, and finish the day in bays where they are coupled and uncoupled again and again. Every one of those moves leans on the air system, the foundation brakes and the trailer connections.
Performance, not appearance
A brake can look perfectly serviceable and still underperform. Contaminated linings, seized adjusters, a sticking relay valve or a slow leak all take stopping power away without leaving much to see. DVSA expects brake performance to be assessed at every safety inspection for exactly that reason, and we assess it on every vehicle that goes through our PMIs.
The faults behind most brake calls
Air faults lead the list: compressors, dryers, reservoirs, and the pipework and couplings where pressure escapes. On trailers, relay valves and couplings are frequent culprits, and a trailer that will not release its brakes can block a bay until someone fixes it. On the foundation side, pads, discs, drums, shoes, chambers and slack adjusters wear at different rates depending on how much town work a vehicle does. Spring brakes that refuse to release or fail to hold are another regular call. After any brake repair we check the whole system again before the vehicle goes back out, and write up what was done.
If it happens on the road
A driver who feels the vehicle pull, notices the pedal behaving differently or sees the air warning come on should stop somewhere safe and ring 01332 916028 rather than pressing on to the next drop. That applies as much in the middle of town on the A5121 as it does on the trunk road. Our technicians can find and fix many air and brake faults where the vehicle stands, and recover it when they can't.
Cold mornings and wet air
Moisture that slips past a worn air dryer causes corrosion and sticking valves for most of the year, and in a cold snap it can freeze in the valves and lines. Keeping the dryer serviced and draining the reservoirs is a simple way to head off a lot of winter brake calls, and it is part of our servicing.
Brakes and the annual test
Brake performance is one of the main things examined at the annual test and one of the most common reasons vehicles fail it. Checking and repairing brakes as part of test preparation means a Burton vehicle goes in with brakes that have already been proven.
Booking brake work
Planned brake work is done at Calke Mill Farm in Melbourne, Monday to Friday, 07:30 to 17:00, and many smaller faults can be fixed at your own site. Ring 01332 916028 with the vehicle and, if there is a fault, what the driver noticed.
