Bad Rear Brakes- Not obvious

[ford46guy]

Originally Posted by whatnext
Hi from the salt belt (been living here since the late 70s).

Another thing for the spring brake maintenance list is to clean out the slots the brake pads ride in.

The other year, found flaking rust in the slots had bound up the pads and kept them from moving. Had to knock the pads out with a hammer. Never had this happen before.

Yeah, I see latham, not far. They are using really nasty stuff in the winter around here. They spray something on the roads before they ice up, I'm sure that stuff targets every piece of metal on the car.

 

[ford46guy]

Originally Posted by Char Baby
Yeah, I lube the sliders & clean/lube the hardware & pad ears in Spring(installing A/S tires). And again in the Fall(installing snow tires). If I miss doing them in the Fall, I will often(but not always) have issues during the Winter Season. The SALT is killing my beautiful vehicles but, this is where I've chosen to live so, I can't blame anyone but myself.

When I did the struts I had to remove a fabric type flexible wheel well shroud. So much salt and sand trapped there. No car wash is going to touch that. Probably in a few years it will be rusted to crap. So far it seems to be holding up pretty well, at least they tried.
The car also has coated hard metal lines, thank goodness.
I did hose it out.

 

[JTK]

Yep. Rotor style rear brakes really take a beating in the rust belt. I don't know if it's their smaller size in relation to the fronts, or because they get more road spray thrown on them, but you're lucky to get 2 years out of them in these conditions.

I used to pull them apart for a cleaning, but I do work on more family vehicles than I care to do this on now. I just order white box rotors and new pads and change them out at the first sign of excessive wear.

 

[mightymousetech]

Originally Posted by JTK
Yep. Rotor style rear brakes really take a beating in the rust belt. I don't know if it's their smaller size in relation to the fronts, or because they get more road spray thrown on them, but you're lucky to get 2 years out of them in these conditions.

I used to pull them apart for a cleaning, but I do work on more family vehicles than I care to do this on now. I just order white box rotors and new pads and change them out at the first sign of excessive wear.


The rear brakes are always much worse because they don't get hot enough to boil off the moisture, unlike the front brakes which do most of the work.

 

[GZRider]

I just got some of the coated Raybestos R-line rear calipers for my G37 about two months ago from Rock, and they looked well put together with all new rubber parts and so far so good.The OEM's were over $375 each from the Infiniti dealers with "discount"online parts depts and the rebuilt were $40 each after the core charge so I took a shot. Installed with fresh Akebono Street performance pads and SS abutment hardware and just cleaned up the rotors and flushed system with Dot 4LV. So far they feel really good and the LV fluid makes a noticeable positive difference in how stability control and ABS intervention occurs on snow and ice covered roads.

 

[DIY4quality]

Originally Posted by GZRider
...flushed system with Dot 4LV...


Which brand of Dot 4 Low Viscosity did you use? The only two I've found are Pentosin and ATE SL6.

 

[GZRider]

I used the Pentosin Dot 4 LV.

 

[DIY4quality]

Originally Posted by GZRider
I used the Pentosin Dot 4 LV.


That's the most common LV found in retail auto parts store, a well regarded brand.

The interesting thing is that my reservoir cap only says "Dot 4" on it. You have to read the owner's manual closely to see that LV is specified. I wonder how many car owners and shops are putting conventional Dot 4 fluid into the system when they should really be using Dot 4 LV.

 

[slacktide_bitog]

Originally Posted by DIY4quality
Which brand of Dot 4 Low Viscosity did you use? The only two I've found are Pentosin and ATE SL6.


Any non-silicone DOT 5.1 is also DOT4 LV

Bosch ESI6, Wagner Severe Duty, and Ravenol 5.1 are usually the most attainable besides the Pentosin

 

[GZRider]

+1 I only went with the Pentosin DOT 4LV because it shipped from the same warehouse as some other parts I ordered and the Bosch 5.1 and Wagner did not.