Make Sure You’re Always Ready to Stop with These Brake Maintenance Tips

How-To: Keeping an Eye on Your Brakes

There are few – if any – feelings worse for drivers than when you push your brake pedal and nothing happens. Even pushing the brake pedal and having your vehicle sluggishly and slowly come to a stop while shaking and vibrating is a scary situation. Thankfully, this is a problematic situation that’s easily avoidable, especially if you follow these how-to tips for keeping an eye on your brakes.

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How-To: Knowing You’ve Got Brake Problems

You can’t fix something if you don’t know it needs to be fixed, which is why you always need to be alert when it comes to your brakes. If you push your brake pedal and come to a stop normally with no noise and no shaking, you’re in the clear. But as soon as you notice that it’s starting to take longer than usual to come to a stop, or as soon as you hear your brakes start to make screeching noises, you need to get your brakes checked out by professionals. In fact, your ears are you best tools for making sure your brakes are still functioning properly – because as soon as you hear the sound of metal scraping metal, you know your brakes are on their way out. And once you get to the point of your vehicle shaking and vibrating when you try to brake, you’ve got even less time to fix the problem.

What Leads to Brake Degradation?

Age is the most common factor in brake degradation – as it is with everything else. The older your brakes are, and the more they’ve been used, the less effective they’ll become. This is especially true if you tend to stop hard or suddenly, as that kind of use can wear out your brakes faster than normal.

If you’re worried about your brakes, the best course of action is to take your car into the shop and have them looked at. And if you don’t want to deal with that, you can always check out our used vehicle inventory here at Auto Simple in Chattanooga, TN. And if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact our staff.