Repair-It

Jamie was complaining. I checked the left front last weekend and it was fine, slide pins were good. She complained again. Through the giant 20" wheel I was able to easily feel the right front rotor. The inner rotor surface was destroyed! And I jammed my finger through the caliper window and it feels like the backing plate is directly on the rotor (i.e. no friction material left). Good lord. About to go grab some Advance Auto rotors and pads (the Napa that is open does not stock the rotors).

According to Fuelly I did all 4 rotors and pads on Nov 11 2015, at 98,106 miles. It has about 125k now. I think that is terrible though obviously something is wrong. I will give the pins a very close look and possibly an aggressive clean and relubrication. I have seen excessive brake dust on that wheel intermittently FWIW.

With 20% online discount, two front rotors and a set of pads set me back $156.63 with tax. Not too bad.

What she isn't telling you is she is autocrossing it on weekdays.

I am going to rotate the tires while I am there. I checked the left front last weekend and the outer tread is just starting to scallop. So it's due. Fronts cross to the rear, rears straight forward. I'm not sure I've ever rotated these new tires actually. They were installed at 114k so they have like 11k on them. Again, overdue. FSM (actually the owner's manual) says 5,000 to 8,000 miles. It also has special notes for the 20s.

Tire Inspection and Rotation
We recommend that you regularly inspect your vehicle's tires, including the spare tire, for signs of wear or damage. See When It Is Time for New Tires for more information.

Tire rotation is not recommended if your vehicle has the following tire combinations:

• P235/65R17 size tires on the front wheels and P255/60R17 size tires on the rear wheels.

• P235/60R18 size tires on the front wheels and P255/55R18 size tires on the rear wheels.

Different tire sizes should not be rotated front to rear. Each tire and wheel should only be used in its original front or rear position.

Tire rotation is recommended if your vehicle is equipped with P255/50R20 size tires on all four wheel positions. These tires should be rotated every 5,000 to 8,000 miles (8 000 to 13 000 km). See Scheduled Maintenance .

The purpose of a regular tire rotation is to achieve a uniform wear for all tires on the vehicle. This will ensure that your vehicle continues to perform most like it did when the tires were new.

Any time you notice unusual wear, rotate your tires as soon as possible and check wheel alignment. Also check for damaged tires or wheels. See When It Is Time for New Tires and Wheel Replacement .

When rotating P255/50R20 size tires, always use the correct rotation pattern shown here.

Do not include the compact spare tire in the tire rotation.

After the tires have been rotated, adjust the front and rear inflation pressures as shown on the Tire and Loading Information label. See Inflation - Tire Pressure and Loading the Vehicle .

Reset the Tire Pressure Monitor System. See Tire Pressure Monitor Operation .

Rotated tires and reset TPMS. 125,712 miles. That means I didn't even get 30k out of these. 27,606 miles in fact. Hold that thought.

Started on the right front since I thought that would be more interesting. As promised, the inner pad was right down to the backing plate. I actually wonder if the pad material delaminated from the backing plate. None of the other front pads looked anywhere near this bad. In fact here is the outer pad. Outer rotor surface looks fine. But about that inner surface. Oh boy is it gouged. I'm not sure I've ever properly hung the caliper up like the manuals always suggest. Dual piston for extra clamps. After that I removed the caliper bracket and began to clean it. The upper pin was actually kind of bound up but not like rusted and seized. It had the blue Bendix stuff on it. Maybe that stuff isn't great for this application. Here is my cleaning apparatus. The 3 jaw chuck holds the 3 Q-tips nicely. Hub for some reason. In other news my new outer tie rod end is rusting nicely. I did the wheel bearing shake test and this one passed. I didn't really check any others. Another shot of the scored rotor. It's too bad. I wish I could have saved it. Threw the bracket in the big vice to work on lubricating everything. I threaded the pin bolts in to help manipulate them. The upper pin on both sides has some kind of rubber grommet at the end. Not sure what it's for. Anti-rattle? The hardware kind of sucks though. It didn't stay in very securely so I modified my installation technique on the other side, which I will get to in a bit. New pads and rotor. Always satisfying. Maybe less satisfying after only 27k...by the way I did CARQUEST Wearever/Aimco rotors. I've had bad luck with these back in the day on my Caprice but I am sure with a different application and a lot of time, they are probably just fine now. For pads I did Carquest Wearever Platinum Professional Ceramic Brake Pads - Front (4-Pad Set), Part No PXD1019H, LIMITED LIFETIME REPLACEMENT Onto the driver's side.

Definitely more wear on the inner but not exactly down to the backing plate, is it? These were Napa AdaptiveOne pads, which I was up sold. Not sure I would run them again. They may have a lifetime warranty but the circumstances did not lend themselves to using that. Outer rotor. Inner rotor. Check out the cooling vane design of the new rotors. Have not seen this design before. Now that I look the old rotors (Napa) seem the same. Whatever. So here is my trick that I used on the driver's side. This worked pretty well. I lubricated the pins and hardware, and shoved the pads in. The idea was to then put the whole thing onto the knuckle. And it worked perfectly. Having the pads spacing the bracket made it easier to start the bolts, too. Random mention: the front pistons are magnetic. I assume that means they are not phenolic. That's when I started my rotation since the brakes were done. Before I did, I decided I should inspect the rear pads. Outer pads were fine but....oh no. The inner pad wear indicator is solidly on the rotor. Seriously?? I believe both rears were the same. So now I need to get a set of rear pads, too. I guess I'll get the same that I used on the front. In the meantime I did my road test. Rears are squealing nicely, as you would expect. Fronts seem quiet. Stopping is decent, pedal feels decent but not great (which is probably working as designed). Happily, I went into a parking lot to check for drag after using the brakes a bunch and there is zero drag. It's actually less than my STS. I say that now but it is entirely possible when I compress the rear pistons back in, one or both will drag after the new pads. Not sure if I want to preemptively buy calipers, too....I may take my chances.

Adam wrote:What she isn't telling you is she is autocrossing it on weekdays.

Maybe I am supposed to rotate my brake pads for maximum life and even wear. lol

I actually could - the inner and outer seem to be the same, at least on the front.

Nice, 20% off online orders, plus I had a $20 speedperk. Total price for rear pads w/ tax: $29.09.

Did the rear pads today. The inner pads were completely gone. Just the thinnest layer of friction material. It would have eaten into the rotor very soon. You may ask: wasn't it squealing for a long time then?? Yes, it was. Never occurred to me that all the inner pads (with the exception of the front left) would be damn near down to the backing plate. So over the next year or two or three, I will be more vigilant of squealing and check the inner pads before I ignore it. This time I was able to save the rotors.

Left rear. Check it out. Outer pad has plenty of meat. I think these brakes would have gone upwards of 50k or even closer to 60k had it not worn so unevenly. I should save the outer pads and if it does this again, I'll have a complete set of outer pads that I could throw back on...yeah, I am half serious. I did wire wheel the outer lip of the rotors to decrease the chance of that rust edge building up enough to touch something like the pad clip hardware and cause a squeal, which was an issue I had with Jamie's old Malibu.

Same trick as last time. The hardware here held the pads much less firmly but the approach still worked well. Other side (right/passenger side). If anything this inner pad was even further worn. Just the thinnest layer of friction material was left. The rotor surface was fine, luckily. All the pins were great, but I cleaned and relubricated them anyway. The caliper pistons retracted fine.
I did have what seemed to be a boot issue on the right caliper, upper boot. Maybe it swelled a little from the brake cleaner (these are the press in kind so I couldn't remove them since I did not have replacements on hand). Anyway it seems like it might have some kind of tear or hole.

Did a road test. Took like 3 or 4 presses to get a pedal back (Ed remembers that). Brake feel is much better now and feels pretty normal for what I'd expect from this vehicle. No more squealing of course. 125,935 or so miles. We'll see how long this lasts. Another reason to rotate (just to annoy Bill): if I rotate in the 5,000-8,000 mile range as required (for me every oil change or so seems about right, then I would have plenty of opportunities to inspect the brakes, long before they wear out prematurely. Just saying. Now I just need to, you know, inspect the brakes more regularly myself....

More random driving impressions. These Cooper tires are NOT performance tires. They are great for Jamie and amazing in the snow, are wearing well and will probably last 10s of thousands of miles. But they sure protest in the corners. In fact, and I've mentioned this before, almost everything about the way this vehicle is currently configured is decidedly less sporty than my STS. Factors include:
- FE1 suspension (with 125k on it)
- Non-performance tires (GM shipped it with Goodyear Eagle RS-As which I hate, but are much higher performing than these Coopers, and also wear out faster, and more expensive)
- The Sport package 20s (poorly named package) run tires that are basically as tall as the 18s, but on wheels 2" bigger. So the whole vehicle sits up higher. This does not help performance. Generally speaking, bigger wheels ruin performance, including more rotational inertia which saps acceleration (and braking), too.
- I do find the transmission calibration much less sporty though it does alright in sport mode.

All that said, I did a little performance driving with it and what I will say is the 6L50 in sport mode is more compelling overall than the older 5L50 in my STS. The STS will hold gears, too, but the 6L50 adds rev matched downshifts which the 5L50 did not have (an 07+ STS would have it, too). Overall it basically does a good job holding the lower gear for performance driving instead of constantly upshifting and then downshifting depending on throttle position and cornering. The result is that the power is always right there when you get back on the throttle, and as you slow down, it rev matches the downshifts as I mentioned which seems sophisticated and modern (for a 10 year old vehicle).

Decided to take the SRX for a weekend activity about 30 mins away. The brakes felt pretty decent. I did not pound on them.

kevm14 wrote:I did have what seemed to be a boot issue on the right caliper, upper boot. Maybe it swelled a little from the brake cleaner (these are the press in kind so I couldn't remove them since I did not have replacements on hand). Anyway it seems like it might have some kind of tear or hole.

Got my Carlson boots (p/n 16129). They come as an axle set, so 4. I replaced the right rear so I have to spare JE5 boots for rear calipers (STS or SRX). I actually did it on the car which I think was a net savings not having to take the bracket off (which is just 2 bolts admittedly) Used....a 5/8" or 11/16" socket as my installer tool (and a mini-sledge as usual). Not a lot of clearance to swing but I used the broad side which gave me more swing room.