Hi Volvo owners,

I'm new here but I'm wondering if you could help me sort out the following situation:

In the last 5 minutes of a 3 hour drive to CT to visit the grandparents with our one-year-old son, we found that the front right brake of our used 1996 Volvo 850 sedan made a scraping sound. We took it in to Firestone, who found that the caliper was indeed sticking and informed us that the brake pads and rotors also needed replacement ($$$). We asked for the old parts back and were horrified to see that not only were the brake pads completely gone-- down to the metal-- but the rotors were actually CONCAVE with wear. We hadn't noticed any problems (squishiness or squeaking) from the brakes except for an occasional rubbing sound coming from the front right wheel (which was probably the sticking caliper) that the mechanic at our garage at home had told us not to worry about.

He said this when we took in the car just 6 months ago for a full tuneup and safety inspection. It looks like we were screwed by his garage, and we're hopping mad because we could have been killed. I doubt we can get our money back but if they were negligent we'd like to report them to the state agency that licenses them to do inspections.

Before we do that though I'd like to be fair and make sure that (1) it's not likely that we could have put that much wear on the brakes in 6 months; and (2) the parts that we got back from Firestone are indeed the rotors that came out of our car.

We don't put much mileage on the car-- do errands 2-3 times a week in the city (stop and go traffic); and a 200 mile highway trip every 3 weeks to see our parents. I looked at the rotors, which are rusty, dirty, and worn, and see some numbers on them-- Are these identifying numbers and can they tell me whether they could have come out of a Volvo 850?

I'll be grateful if anybody here can help.