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Services / Brake Caliper Refubrishment
BCS Automotive

Refurbishment  of 
Brake Calipers

We strive for perfection each day, with badly seized calipers, solving problems with sticking and squeaky brakes, no matter how rusty your calipers are, we perform a complete remanufacturing service with the option for our high-end paint upgrade. Each rebuild comes with lifetime function warranty.

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Brake Caliper RefubrishmentBrake Caliper RefubrishmentBrake Caliper Refubrishment
Brake Caliper Un-Seize & Repair Service
Total Brake Caliper Refurbishment
Optional Coatings For Your Caliper Refurb
Upgrade Coatings
High-End Brake Caliper Painting Service
We know that some customers don’t need a complete brake caliper refurbishment (also known as re-manufacture), so we have introduced a more budget option where we simply solve the problem of a seized caliper and get it working again. This way you can be back on the road much quicker.
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Brake Caliper
Depending on the caliper coating you choose, whether the remanufacture basic gunmetal grey, our standard paint service or our high-end painting service. You’ll receive a LIFETIME WARRANTY on the function of your brakes. Even our most basic paint is far better than the industry standard electroplate or zinc passivate and even the coloured coating on many well known brake calipers.
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If you have a complete re-manufacture of your calipers, we use a pretty tough coating as standard which is far superior to electroplate usually used when you buy calipers new or re-manufactured calipers from autofactors & Halfords etc.
An improved optin to brake caliper powder coating. The finish is very similar to a good quality powder coat, but better suited to cope with the heat and abrasion, the gloss is great too.
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This is the bees knee's of coatings. You'll get a LIFETIME WARRANTY on both the function and paint finish of your calipers.
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Brake Refubrishment Service

Frequently Asked Questions

Turnaround Times

Turnaround Times

Turnaround times are based on averages and are guidelines, not promises, nor are they set in stone, they vary from week to week depending on how busy we are. Sometimes we are much faster and frequently turn what should have been a 7 day job around in 2 days, although rare the same type of 7 day job can take longer than expected, although this is usually due to additional work or waiting for parts, this can cause very rare delays of up to 3 months if we are waiting on back order parts. In these cases, we cannot be held liable for storage costs, insurance, road tax or any other cost. In incredibly rare cases, we can be waiting on back order parts for up to 6 months or more. For many of these customers, a refurbishment of the original part is the only available recourse as purchasing replacement brakes is not an option at all. So if you are unsure of the possibility that your brakes could be rare or difficult to obtain brakes for, please ask us in advance and we'll do our best to inform you of what you can expect. If replacement brakes are not available and we inform you that there could be an issue, it is likely to be worth taking your car off the road until your brakes are ready.

Please do not make appointments with garages, book holidays, plan track days etc based on the turnaround times described here as sometimes work can take longer or our quality control measures pick up the occasional fault which can require rework.

Combine turnaround times when combining services.

Parts

Parts

While we stock most parts for most calipers, there are calipers which have rare parts which we have to source on demand and the turnaround times are affected by the speediness of the 3rd parties we rely on for sourcing some parts. We will inform you as soon as we are aware of any issues, while this is relatively rare, it is worth considering asking us if we have issues with your calipers before sending them into us if i.e. you have a track day or holiday booked shortly after you hope to have your calipers back. If you have a rare or classic vehicle, we will only assume that parts are available and we cannot be held responsible if we are unable to source parts or if we are waiting on backorder parts from manufacturers. So if your car is classic or rare, the turnaround time guidelines shown here may not be relevant to your vehicle. Please understand that there are tens of thousands of parts which are required running our business.

Additional Engineering Work

Additional Engineering Work

Please also be aware that not all calipers arrive needing only the work quoted, we can find snapped bolts, sheered brackets and many other issues. We have complete engineering facilities including a £130k CNC Turning Centre, a manual lathe and manual milling machine. Engineering work required will add time to your job, while this is relatively rare, it is worth considering asking us if there are common issues with your calipers before sending them into us.
If i.e. you have a track day or holiday booked shortly after you hope to have your calipers back.
In the rare event you aren't happy with an updated invoice price, please note there will be an assessment charge to cover the cost of the work already performed.

Priority Turnaround Times

Priority Turnaround Times

Choosing the PRIORITY service will add a surcharge to your invoice. If we do not complete the work within 2 days of quoted time, you will receive a full refund on the additional cost paid to us.

Depending on the value of your invoice or how often you use us, we may provide Priority at no additional cost. In this case, where priority failures occur, you will not be entitled to any refunds. We will not be held liable for any expense incurred for car hire, missed holidays, MOT slots, track time/events or any other thing that may be considered similar.

PRIORITY is only available where parts are easily accessible, so we would not offer this to a customer with a set of calipers where data is limited, i.e imports or where parts have to be sourced from USA etc. Please do not assume you can have the PRIORITY service without speaking with us first.

Combine turnaround times when combining services.

Pricing

Pricing

We cannot guarantee that your invoice will match your estimate, sometimes customers require additional engineering work or to custom make parts not available. Potential additional charges include engineering work, including bolt extractions, re-threads, helicoils, making and fitting inserts, manufacturing rare parts to name a few. While these kinds of additional costs are relatively infrequent, we will inform you of any such potential charges. If we are unable to make contact within a reasonable amount of time, we will continue with the work so as not to delay the job and getting you back on the road.

In rare situations where parts are incredibly rare and we are unable to make them, we may have to spend several hours searching for rare parts. We will not charge you anything more for our time, but you do have to understand that we don't know what condition your brakes are in before they arrive at our workshop. N.B. The "several hours" would be spread over several days or weeks. Obviously we can't stop answering the phone & emails etc while we search for one persons parts. Often, we can contact 10-15 companies around the world and wait for them to respond.

Making A Payment To BCS Automotive

Making A Payment To BCS Automotive

Where you are not paying in advance for work, we generally don't take payment until after your calipers arrive with us. Upon arrival, your parts will enter a queue which we call the "Assessment Queue". When your parts have completed the assessment process, only at that point can we 100% confirm the complete cost of doing business with us. The assessment is a bit like an MOT, prices can change depending on any faults we find, these can include seized, snapped bolts, or parts that are usually reusable that have failed assessment.

Once the Assessment has been completed by a technician, this then goes to the office for final confirmation. At this point we will call you and go through your options. This is the point at which payment must be made. We do this for various reasons, but mostly so we can keep our outbound call volume & time as low as possible. We can have several hundred jobs per month, all needing at least one phone call (assessment). If we have to call twice and operate a 'payment on completion' policy, this will at least double our call volume, making us less efficient and increasing our costs and likely, the price you pay.

No customer, trade or private is able to pay when they are completed. Even if you are collecting your brake calipers in person. It is company policy that we are paid at the start of the process.

Public Liability & Professional Indemnity Insurance

Public Liability & Professional Indemnity Insurance

All our work is fully insured with up to £5,000,000 for Products and Professional Services Indemnity and £10,000,000 for Public Liability. A copy of our certificates can be emailed to you at your request. There have been no claims in the history of our company and we have QA and QC systems and processes in place to ensure this remains the case. As a company that specialises in only brake calipers, our insurers regard us as a high risk trade and as a result, such cover comes at a considerable cost to the business, although we would never be without it. We have high regard for our own peace of mind and yours.

Your vehicle in our workshop is covered for up to £400,000. It is not for us to estimate the value of your vehicle, so if your vehicle is worth more than this, you'll need to inform us of this. In which case, we can inform our insurers that your vehicle is with us and gain the additional cover for your vehicle.

If we are to receive your vehicle and it is worth more than the covered amount and you do not inform us within 5 working days before arrival. You will indemnify BCS Automotive Limted, its owners and employees from any further claim above that paid out by our insurers.

Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance

We operate a Lean Six Sigma process that ensures we are constantly improving. Our systems and processes, coatings, software and communication methods are regularly scrutinised. We ask all customers for feedback via an automated questionnaire (ensuring we never forget to ask your opinion), we believe that you are the best judges of our products and services and all the Six Sigma in the world won't be able to deliver our 'current state' as well as you can.

As mentioned above, our trade is high-risk for insurers. Without measures in place, there is a lot that can go wrong in our business and the stakes are high. Thankfully, we are a company who puts customers before profit and never cut corners, our ever improving systems and processes ensure we maintain our very high standards and we make sure our customers have the best stopping power in the world. Our insurance company also demands that certain standards are met in order to remain in cover, this includes a specific industry proven method of pressure testing brake calipers. In all, we hope that we are the best caliper refurbishment company in the world, as it is certainly our aim.

Returns & Re-Work

Returns & Re-Work

Mistakes rarely happen, while this is very rare, we accidentally ship calipers back to our customers with minor faults.

Should you make us aware of any faults either before or during fitment, we will arrange shipping with our carrier and at our expense both ways. We will not be held liable for shipping expenses where you have paid retail prices for shipping. We will only refund a maximum of £10 for any shipping transactions you have made without our approval.

We are require at least one opportunity to rectify any defects or faults with our work. No refunds will be provided unless a second attempt to rectify any faults is unsuccessful. Due to the nature of some brake calipers, certain operational checks cannot be completed unless the caliper is fitted to the vehicle, in particular handbrake mechanism faults under no-pedal pressure.

Where you have insisted on having a third party inspect and repair any faults which may exist, you will indemnify us of any repair costs where we have not had an opportunity to intervene and attempt to make right the fault ourselves. We also reserve the right to instruct a qualified third party to act on our behalf.

We will only accept costs incurred by you where you have forwarded to us a written quotation by email or post before any remedial work is carried out and that it is then approved by management at BCS Automotive.

Limitations of Liability

Limitations of Liability

Any liability of the company BCS Automotive, any shareholders, directors and any staff is limited to the money paid by the customer to BCS Automotive for the products and/or services purchased. We are not liable for costs (i.e. car hire, ramp hire costs, road tax, insurance, storage costs or any other costs) other than work required on your actual brake calipers and only when carried out by BCS Automotive. In the unlikely event that faults exist, we require at least 2 attempts to rectify any faults that you have detected that our QC process may have missed. Where we may be liable for the cost of correction of any problems with our service, such corrections must be carried out by BCS Automotive Limited. Refunds are not provided on the basis of a telephone conversation, text, Facebook chat, email or letter asserting that a fault exists, we must have the opportunity to inspect and rectify any reported problems/faults. Inspections from third parties are not accepted.

How To Rebuild Brake Calipers

How To Rebuild Brake Calipers

We do not recommend that anyone attempts a rebuild yourself on a road going vehicle for obvious reasons. If you are safety conscious and respect the lives of other road users, you shouldn’t need any encouragement to leave rebuilding your brake calipers to experienced professionals.

You must bear in mind that some of the caliper repair kits available on sites like eBay are often substandard in quality, if anything goes wrong with your rebuild, the seller of the repair kit has no responsibility for the failure of the parts, as it is easy to blame it on the customer who performed the rebuild.

When reassembling calipers it is very easy to slice chunks out of the piston bore seals with the piston when sliding it into the bore, you would not know you have done this until the caliper is fitted and enough pressure is applied to the brake fluid, this may not be until you drive your vehicle.

brake caliper partsStripping and rebuilding brakes is not difficult in principle, but seized pistons are a nightmare to deal with even if you have the equipment we do. It is usually the stripping, cleaning and shot blasting that is the time consuming element of the re-manufacturing process, once everything is prepared, treated and ready to take the new replacement pistons, seals, dust-covers, bushes and anything else your calipers require, the rebuild is pretty easy going so long as you know what you are doing of course.

The bit that you cannot do at home is a proper pressure test on the calipers, this tests that there is a perfect seal between the piston, bore seal and the caliper itself. We are happy to set out a few instructions for those who wish to self-diagnose faults on their calipers, but the rebuild needs to be left to people who have experience of this, needless to say the ability to pressure test the integrity of the piston seals is critical. If you have a multiple piston caliper, we recommend not doing anything, extracting the pistons is difficult and you probably won’t have the tools to hand to be able to do this, so this guide is for single piston calipers only. You will need: Compressed air, swan neck grips, brake fluid, a Brillo pad or Scotch-brite, gloves, goggles and a paper towel or a cloth.

Stripping Your Calipers

Stripping Your Calipers

You will need to first drain the brake fluid from the caliper as you are going to inject compressed air into the chamber and you do not want any blown back on you. So, ensuring your goggles are on do exactly that, where the flexible hose attaches to the caliper you should be able to force air through. This should pop the piston out of the bore, if not, your going to have to secure the caliper in a vice and get your swan neck grips round the face of the piston, rotate it back and forth while forcing air through. If this does not dislodge the piston you’ll have to keep on persevering and if its still not out an hour later then give up, you’ll have to leave it to us. Assuming you have managed to remove the piston from your caliper, it will probably have an element of corrosion round the surface of the piston, this is normal so don’t worry. To decide if you need to replace the piston, or not you will have to clean the corrosion as much as possible to see if there is any corrosion has eaten away at the surface. If this is the case, when the piston surface slides along the bore seal, the two will not meet tightly enough to stop brake fluid from leaking out of the chamber. This will of course lead to a loss of fluid out of the reservoir and on an emergency stop the force required will not be delivered to the brake pads & discs. If the piston is clean and corrosion free it can be reused and will have plenty of years of life left in it after a rebuild. Rebuilding Your Calipers. We do not suggest that you do this, you can do it at home in relative ease but you will be unable to properly pressure test your caliper, so there is no way of knowing that the seal between the piston and caliper casting is good enough. It is only possible to test this properly with at least 150 PSI, most home compressors can only produce around 60-100 PSI at best.
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How to stop your brakes squeaking

The squeaking which comes from braking systems is caused by vibrations which come from either the contact between the pads and discs OR the contact between the brake pads and pistons. Usually, this will happen within the first 1,000 miles of your pads being fitted.
  • Un seized, stripped & shot blasted
    Jag Mk2 Brake Caliper Rebuild
  • Caliper rebuilt with new seals & basic paint
    Jag Mk2 Brake Caliper Rebuild

When you fit new brake pads

You must use a heatproof silicone grease on the face of the pistons.

Standard copper grease is not suitable as its difficult to avoid getting the grease on the piston dust-covers, being made of rubber this can make them perish eventually allowing moisture to get round the piston. The silicone grease should be enough to dampen any vibrations between the pad and piston.
  • After degrease in original red coating
    High-end painting upgrade
  • Aston Marting calipers painted with custom stencilling
    High-end painting upgrade

Bedding in new brake pads

When you fit discs & pads you must make sure you do plenty of intentional braking in the first few miles, try and pull in a few ‘almost but not quite’ emergency stops too. This is because when pressure is applied to the brake pedal and the pads are firmly pushed against the disc, they don’t quite sit flat and flush, this can cause the brakes to squeak also.
  • On arrival at BCS
    Ford Focus RS Brake Caliper
  • Custom painted in pearl blue
    Ford Focus RS Brake Caliper

My brakes squeak, they are not new discs or pads

This could be down to the piston seal which is becoming slightly perished losing an amount of flexibility. This causes the actual piston to vibrate against the pad no matter how much grease you apply to the back of the pads.
  • Not the worst we’ll see, but bad
    Seized pistons dealt with
  • Custom Chrome Airbrush Stencilling
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Full Brake Caliper Refurbishment Process

With a measure twice, cut once approach to a caliper refurbishment, we ensure we cover ever aspect of the service. These days we do much more than we used to, we are forever learning and developing new ideas and improving the process of caliper refurbishment. Our current process as below.

Unit examination

Total dis-assemble of your unit.

Unit degrease

Total degrease on our pretty fancy degreasing machine

Inspection

Air dry parts for inspection

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Full Brake Caliper Refurbishment Process

Report and confirmation

Generate report for parts department so they can pick or source parts for rebuild.

Reports

Generate report for parts department so they can pick or source parts for rebuild.

Approval

Our parts department will call you to confirm service, add-ons, payment, shipping & any other issues

Refubrishment Begins

Once approval is confirmed with you, your calipers will move around our workshop as follows

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Full Brake Caliper Refurbishment Process

Coating and Painting

Total shot-blast to bare metal. Unless original coating needs to be maintained, please make a note of this in your package with your calipers so we know early on.

Coating removal

Total shot-blast to bare metal. Unless original coating needs to be maintained, please make a note of this in your package with your calipers so we know early on.

Painting preparation

Ferrous materials are then soaked in a de-rusting solution until the painter is ready to add your free or upgrade coating. The de-rusting solution also means that it dissolves anything the shot-blaster may have missed.

Painting applied

Our painter then applies your desired coating, standard re-man coating, Aviation Polymer or High-End Paint.

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Full Brake Caliper Refurbishment Process

Components, re-assembly and tests

By this time, the parts department have usually matched and picked your parts, any brake caliper parts not stocked are sourced from trusted suppliers. We are very fussy on materials used, so beware of cheaper alternatives (eBay etc.)

Components

By this time, the parts department have usually matched and picked your parts, any brake caliper parts not stocked are sourced from trusted suppliers. We are very fussy on materials used, so beware of cheaper alternatives (eBay etc.)

Re-assembly

The rebuild technician then re-assembles them with your new parts as necessary. As standard we replace all rubber components within the quoted price, if pistons required these are billed separately. Piston failure rate is 13% (based on last 12 months).

Performance tests

We pressure test up to 2,500 psi on our brake testing rig. Bear in mind that in an emergency brake some vehicles are capable of generating over 2,000 psi.

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Full Brake Caliper Refurbishment Process

Inspection, packing and dispatch

The are then cleaned up and placed on our QC area for inspection by management before a QC passed sticker is placed on your paperwork, they are then packaged up and ready for dispatch.

Inspection

The are then cleaned up and placed on our QC area for inspection by management.

Packing

A QC passed sticker is placed on your paperwork, they are then packaged up and ready for dispatch.

Dispatch

Once dispatched, you will get an automatically generated email and SMS with your tracking number and delivery date.

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