Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Guys ! Help with brakes

I have a 98 ford contour se, I started having
Abs brake light coming on, so ford replaced brakes and turned rotors 600.00
then abs came on again, ford then said no problem just need new pads and labor 200
then abs came on again they said just dirty connection on battery cables 350.00
today abs on again and now car shakes when applying brakes at any speed they want 600
for 4 new rotors, help I am getting screwed by ford any ideas what wrong?

Holy shi*.....

You are already $1150 in to debt with them! Take it somewhere else....

tell me about it, I am just concerned cause
i don't know what a worn rotor looks like,
looking at front wheels metal part seems smooth
with very little tiny lines.....uuuugh

The ABS light is for the ABS system (i.e. electronics finds fault), not the brakes and pads or the battery cable ( ) as far as I know. Sounds like you are getting rooked. Don't ever go there again.

Well, except for one thing. Ford parts are warranted for 12,000 miles or 12 months. Anything that they have replaced in the past year that they want to do again is on their dime. And you should get reimbursed if they did something twice in the same year.

What kind of guarantee did you get?
Go back and gripe and complain to the manager about all of the money you spent and demand that it be fixed free of charge. Say you will get on the phone to FoMoCo, Better Business Bureau, etc. if they don't.
Sounds like an ABS electronic problem.
They charged you $350 to clean the battery cables?

the car has about 30 miles I bought it used
however spent extra for the extended warrenty.
which seems to be a waste it never covers whats
wrong, the battery cables were cleaned a fixed
and the seatbelt was replaced but it cost 75.00
to put it on the brake machine and labor to clean
the battery and they aligned wheels cause it
was shaking when applying brakes, I picked it up today they charged me nothing, I have a local guy
who says he will look at it, if it needs rotors
he can do it for about 300 or under for all four

Take it back to the dealer that did the previous work. You spent over $1,000 which should have covered replacing the entire braking system.
Demand that they fix it for free!

If the ABS light is on, check the ABS system. From what you're describing with the uneven braking, one of the individual wheel sensors may be sick. Brake pulsing may be caused by warped rotors. Rotors can get warped from over-torqueing the wheel lugs. Who has changed the tires on the car? Unless over-torqued, rotors should not go bad quickly. They usually either fail because of too many rotor turnings (where they machine the faces to ensure a flat surface, and the rotors end up too thin), or warpage such as from too much heat or overtorqueing. Why do they want to replace all four? If they've recently been replaced, they shouldn't all go bad unless they were all over-torqued. Also, didn't they replace the pads when they replaced the brakes rotors the first time? Something doesn't add up. I will admit, dealerships don't like to own up to their mistakes. On a previous Grand Prix (sorry), the rear calipers had to be replaced four times in 30,000 miles. Every time, the dealership tried to tell me it was the fault of my wife's driving style. Every time, some tenacity and logic forced them to reverse course. Kinda funny, now that I've sold the car, GM got socked with a class action on the poor rear caliper design.