My wife's Sirion 1.3SL 2001 has just failed MoT on Front Brake Imbalance (29%) and has advisories on worn front discs and pads.

Non-specialist garage reckoned new discs and pads would probably fix the imbalance but (as a clueless, non-techy person) I'd imagined that the EBD would have maintained the balance across all wheels - or does it only handle front vs rear loading? Can the EBD fail in isolation without any warning light?

Anyway, it also failed on leaky rear exhaust (which looks costly) and rear tyres (cracks from age rather than worn as it does low mileage - under 40k) but I don't want to start throwing money at the car (much as she loves it) if there are "hidden" problems that won't be fixed but would require significant further outlay.

They reset the warning light which had just come on, according to diagnostic, for the pre-cat oxygen sensor (lambda at upper limit of 1.03 in fast idle test) and it hasn't (yet) come back on. I'd had to remove the battery to charge it after some weeks of non-use a couple of days earlier and the ECU light came on when the battery was re-connected.

When lurking here I've noticed mention of sources of affordable discs but all general advice and opinions would be very welcome. Apologies for lengthy post but I'm trying to provide enough relevant information for you all to work with.

Thanks for reading this far (unless you didn't).