Aston Martin V8 Vantage

The Vantage emerges from storage for spring, and receives a brake refresh to keep it in fine fettle

ITOOK THE VANTAGE OUT OF WINTER hibernation at the beginning of March, just in time for all the wonderful spring sunshine we’d been looking forward to, so you know who to blame for the four weeks of rain, sleet and generally rubbish weather that followed. Sorry about that.

In fact R100 AMV went straight out of Autostore’s dehumidified storage unit and straight into the onsite workshop. Not to rectify any malady, I’m pleased to say, but for its MOT test (passed, no advisories, yes!) and to have the brake discs and pads replaced. At last year’s service, Nick Mee & Co had picked up that the rear discs and pads were approaching the end of their life, and the front discs were well on the way too. Although the front pads had been replaced only three years ago, the advice is always to replace the pads when you do the discs, so replacements all round it would be.

I’d considered getting the work done by an Aston specialist, but brakes are brakes. And ever since Aston Martin Cambridge closed two years ago, Autostore, just down the road in rural Cambridgeshire, has been looking after a number of ex-customers, so they know the V8 Vantage well. Not that there’s anything trick about Aston brakes, but it was reassuring that they’d know exactly where to lift the car without damaging the sills, for example.

The other reason for going down the nonspecialist route, of course, was cost. Specialists tend to quote around a grand per axle for the V8V, including labour, and I reckoned I could probably save a few bob if I shopped around. A couple of hours’ googling later, I’d found the correct Brembo discs on Autodoc for £452 for all four, and the Oe-spec Pagid pads, wear sensors and brake fluid from Carparts4less for £449.27. Add three and a half hours’ labour at Autostore, and the total for the whole job came in at £1219.17, so a saving of £800 or so on typical specialist prices. Which should cover the cost of the annual service, which is also now due (though that will be specialist-performed, to get the all-important stamp in the book…). I’m also hoping to get the driver’s door gas strut replaced at the same time, since after 17 years of use it now has all the door-propping strength of a newborn kitten.

Meanwhile, I’ve just about bedded the new brakes in. Brembo recommends a couple of hundred miles, during which you’re supposed to do repeated gentle-ish stops to get the surfaces of the pads and discs correctly aligned and transfer some of the pad material to the disc face. Ideally you avoid any fierce braking from high speed until they’re bedded in.

So gently does it for now. But I’m very much looking forward to full braking power being restored. Even though the old pads and discs still had some life left in them, there was a certain lack of bite on initial application and a slightly glassy feel under repeated hard stops. So more bite and feel will be very welcome. There may even be some dry tarmac to experiment on before too much longer…

Date acquired March 2021 Total mileage 45,415 Mileage this month 130 Costs this month £1219.17 mpg this month 20.2