N/F Brake job

[OhioFisherman]

I did a brake job(front) on my sons 2001 Malibu yesterday. He has had the car for about a year and the front brakes had just been replaced when he bought it(by a paid mechanic) Drivers side pads and rotor were perfect, just normal wear for 12-15 thousand miles.

 

Passenger side had problems, outside pad was worn away, evenly but gone inside pad was in the same shape as the ones on the other side,some wear but normal for the mileage. Rotor was trashed.

 

I saw nothing unusual, the holders slide, not stuck I greased them to make sure. Any clue what could cause the ususual wear?

 

Took the car for a ride when I finished and everything seems perfect, you can take your hand off the wheel and hit the brakes and it stops in a straight line no pulling or roughness.

[Raf]

I did a brake job(front) on my sons 2001 Malibu yesterday. He has had the car for about a year and the front brakes had just been replaced when he bought it(by a paid mechanic) Drivers side pads and rotor were perfect, just normal wear for 12-15 thousand miles.

 

Passenger side had problems, outside pad was worn away, evenly but gone inside pad was in the same shape as the ones on the other side,some wear but normal for the mileage. Rotor was trashed.

 

I saw nothing unusual, the holders slide, not stuck I greased them to make sure. Any clue what could cause the ususual wear?

 

Took the car for a ride when I finished and everything seems perfect, you can take your hand off the wheel and hit the brakes and it stops in a straight line no pulling or roughness.

 

Perhaps the piston in the caliper is seized up? Touch the wheel after driving (and being easy on the brakes). Is it hot? If so, I'd suspect caliper.

[OhioFisherman]

Raf, I used a big c-clamp to compress the wheel cylinder piston, the right side went in just as easily as the left so I didn`t see it as the problem. Did not appear to be seized, normal compression force. The brakes work fine, I replaced both sides and the rotors, nothing looked abnormal, nothing felt abnormal except for the one pad and rotor on that side. LOL I have done this before and never encountered this problem.

 

150 bucks for me to do it vs 300 for a shop, a shop did the one he had problems with but for the previous owner. Doing my own brake jobs saved me a lot of money to buy reels!

[Markystang]

What did the rotor look like??

[ecmilley]

common on this car, make sure the pads havn't been put on backwards(easy check is spare tire will rub if on backwards) also make sure there is no rust under the abutment clips holding the pads to tight other than that , this is common brake wear on these cars

[OhioFisherman]

side the good pad hit was fine, nice smooth polished surface not irregular marking a normal wear lip, side by the bad pad gouged and grooved but evenly same as the surface of the pad plate, about all that was left. Good pads on both side had roughly 30,000 mile left on them. Couldn`t turn the rotor wear didn`t seem to indicated it being warped even damage all the way around it.

[Markystang]

Was it badly pitted at all?

A lot of the time, the rotor will rust badly, especially with the Magnesium Chloride on the roads now. The bad rotor will chew up the pad pretty quickly.

It's more common on the rear though...

[lovetofish]

check the caliper slidders pins too. make sure they move nice and freely. and make sure where the pads mount to the knuckle, that there isn't any grooves for the pads to get stuck on and hold the pad to the rotor

[OhioFisherman]

Rotor wasn`t pitted, outside of it was chewed up by the pad backing plate. Other side was fine no pitting no abnormal wear, but I changed brakes as a set fronts, rears so it got done also. Slider pins wear greased and moved normally. All the hardware on both sides looked the same, nothing seemed abnormal. I will pull it back apart in about 5000 miles and see if there is still a problem with odd wear patterns.

 

LOL kids, dad my car is making noise, well ya look in your wheel slots the rotor is trashed. Nice thing about disks is you can see them.

[spanky]

get used to it, it's typical and normal.... all N-Body's seem to be this way, i've got a '96 Grand am and have to change the pads yearly because of it.... calipers every 3 years (new, not remanned), rotors every 2 years (have OEM Brembo's on now, will be switching to powerslot) and cardone semi-mettalic pads (will be switching to ceramics i think, or even hawk pads)...

 

only thing i can figure is the master cylinder has gone bad... but reading the message boards, it's just too common, they eat brakes, just keep an eye on them

[gussser]

Replace slider pins.. When brake is applied, caliper piston pushes out against inner pad. This in turn pulls outer pad in against the rotor. Release pressure & piston recedes into caliper, allowing inner pad to move away from rotor. Outer pad does not move away due to slider pins hanging up. I seen this literaly 100's of times. Use ONLY synthetic grease, as regular grease will not stand up to the heat generated by braking. This info is also available from Raybestos Brake.

[Billy Bob]

This is common for just about ANY GM product. I just did my son's Saturn Coupe. In 7 years the brakes have been repaired 4 times with only 67,000 miles. Get use to it or buy another make.