My car has been in service for 5 1/4 years with only 37,000 miles. About 1/2 of these miles have been in town. My work commute is all of 4 miles each way, with 13 stop signs or lights each way. It's quite common to have rear brakes issues in Michigan; we have lots of winter which comes with lots of salt. Spray from the front wheels tends to keep the rears drenched in salt water. The rear brakes are only lightly used, especially in town, so they seldom get warm. Every car I've had up here with rear disk brakes has had issues (and none with rear drums have had issues). The most common one is that the floating pins bind, resulting in uneven wear. But my issue this time was a bit strange.
The LR disc was not getting swept as evidenced by rust build up. Removed wheel to lubricate pins and discovered that the pads were worn out with ~0.70” of pad remaining. It looks like there is a “stop” that prevents metal to metal contact when worn. Both sides were nearly even with each other indicating a caliper problem rather than a stuck pin, plus the pins did not seem to be stuck. Lubed pins and replaced with Autozone Duralast Gold DG1468. (Retracting the piston requires a spanner tool with 1 5/8” pin separation which can be rented for free from Autozone). The new pads have a thickness of 0.370” (9.4 mm). Also, even though they were still good, I replaced the pads on the RR for balance. The old RR inner pad measured 0.320” or 50/300 = 17% worn. Extrapolating from the present 38k miles gives a projected lifetime of 229k miles. The old outer RR pad measured 0.370” thick which is essentially zero wear. Unknown is why the left side wore out and why the right side is wearing unevenly.
I'll run it for a while this way and see what develops. Both sides seemed to have the same amount of drag and there was no significant difference in disk heat when measured with a pyrometer.
The LR disc was not getting swept as evidenced by rust build up. Removed wheel to lubricate pins and discovered that the pads were worn out with ~0.70” of pad remaining. It looks like there is a “stop” that prevents metal to metal contact when worn. Both sides were nearly even with each other indicating a caliper problem rather than a stuck pin, plus the pins did not seem to be stuck. Lubed pins and replaced with Autozone Duralast Gold DG1468. (Retracting the piston requires a spanner tool with 1 5/8” pin separation which can be rented for free from Autozone). The new pads have a thickness of 0.370” (9.4 mm). Also, even though they were still good, I replaced the pads on the RR for balance. The old RR inner pad measured 0.320” or 50/300 = 17% worn. Extrapolating from the present 38k miles gives a projected lifetime of 229k miles. The old outer RR pad measured 0.370” thick which is essentially zero wear. Unknown is why the left side wore out and why the right side is wearing unevenly.
I'll run it for a while this way and see what develops. Both sides seemed to have the same amount of drag and there was no significant difference in disk heat when measured with a pyrometer.