Brakes failed - narrowly avoided an accident. Luckily at 30mph and not on the motorway! My father in law hired a car for us on 18 July from the Brentwood branch. The next day I drove the car to Norfolk. I could hear a grating noise and it got very loud when braking. I could feel the vibration on the brake pedal. I called Allied on the 20th and advised them of the noise. As I was in Norfolk for a week on holiday, I was told that a mechanic would call and come by. No one called. I called Allied again on the 27th morning. I was told that the manager would call me back. No one called. On the 29th I drove to Lincolnshire. Still no one called. On 4 August, I was driving in Marlborough. I was braking for a pedestrian crossing in a 30mph zone. The car didn’t slow down. I did an emergency stop with the brake and saw (and felt) something fly out of the tyre. The car did not stop. It went past the pedestrian crossing. I had to pull the handbrake to stop the car. The pedestrians were scared. My wife was screaming and my children were crying. I was braking on amber. If I had arrived later and braked on a red light people would have been crossing the road. I would have hit them. I had been driving on motorways and country roads for days. The brakes could have failed then. My family and I could have been involved in a major accident. I drove to a safe place using the handbrake and called the AA. The AA repairman was shocked when he saw the brake pads and discs. His exact words were “who the hell serviced this car!”. He had to drive and get replacement parts. He came back and took of the brake pads. It was down to the metal. He had to hammer of the discs as they had eroded and were stuck. The disc was heavily grooved due to metal on metal contact I.e. pad had been worn down for awhile. The brake fluid container appeared empty. He had to push the fluid all the way back. This was a sign that the fluid had not been topped up. Also a proper service would have picked up the empty brake fluid container and replaced the pads and discs accordingly. The repair took 3 hours in total. Time I could have been on holiday with my family instead of waiting for a repair and counting my lucky stars that no one got hurt. Just after calling the AA I called Allied - no answer. I wrote an email detailing what happened. No response or a call to date. The car was not road worthy. The service has been non existent. I had to give one star in order to write this review. If I could, I would have given negative stars. I hope this is a one off incident for them. It could have been a deadly incident for my family and I.