WTF, rear brakes FUBAR after only 54k? 2G rear brakes blow!

[DiscoStudd]

So the wife calls me at work on Friday and tells me she's driving the Regal to work. Why, I asked? She said the Impala felt like it was going to shake itself apart whenever she'd apply the brakes. Well I thought "great, the stock rotors are complete shit" (thinking the fronts were shot.) So I decided I'd replace the rotors and pads on all 4 sides "just because." Did the fronts first, and they were in surprisingly good shape (not to mention quite a bit larger in size and thickness over the 1G's.)

 

After this I'm dreading the worst, and sure as shit as soon as I popped off the back wheels, I noticed the rotors had grooves worn in them . I pop off the caliper and the pads still had a bit of meat left on them(but they were grooved also,) so I don't understand why the rotors had the deep groves in them (unless whoever owned the car previously ran the pads down to metal and didn't bother replacing the rotors .)

 

Anyways, after I got the tension off of the parking brake, I was able to pop off the rotors and see the back sides of them. It didn't look like the pad was making contact, as there were chunks of rusted rotor surface falling off! I did notice the piston was "all the way out" so maybe it wasn't allowing the pads to make contact anymore

 

So here are the pics of the old rear rotors from a 54,000 mile 2004 Impala:

 

 

 

Just f'n great, huh? Now I'm wishing they had kept the design of the 1.5G rear brakes on the 2G's. I've never had any problems with the rears on the Regal! Guess I'll have to pay more attention to the pads on the rear of this beast. Well I gotta jet, I need to try and get the parking brake re-adjusted so I can get this sucker back on the road...

[94CutlassSLCoupe]

my mom's 97 Grand Prix did that on one side because the slide pins were sticking. The calipers appear to be the same type as in the 94-up gen-1's without the integral parking brake

[DiscoStudd]

The calipers on the Imp weren't a thing like the 94-96's. The 1.5G rear calipers have a huge backside to accomodate the parking brake cable, and they also have the ratcheting pistons. The 2G's rear calipers were very similar to the fronts, only quite a bit smaller (they mounted the same way, and have the "compressable" piston.) The 2G's also have the tiny drum-inside-the-rotor parking brake, so setting the parking brake will have no effect on the rear calipers.

 

Oh, and my sliders were well lubed. Actually when you don't lube up the sliders, the outer pads wear out quicker than the inners...

[GnatGoSplat]

GM can never really seem to perfect rear disc brakes!

The rear brakes on my truck are similar to the gen 2 W's. They're also a fairly new design, used 99-04, but in 05 they went back to drums.

 

[SigEpCutlass]

Ouch that hurts Kevin...

[DiscoStudd]

Ouch that hurts Kevin...

Yeah, tell me about it! I'm about $332 lighter in the pocketbook today than I was on Saturday . After having the car apart, I realized I wasted my money on the front set, but on the bright side I'm hoping I won't have to change the fronts now for a couple of years. I'm going to have the old front rotors machined and then keep them up on the shelf for future use (that is, if they aren't warped at all.)

 

I bought Satisfied Pro Ceramic VS pads (the ones comparable to the Raybestos PG Plus Ceramics) front and rear, PG Plus rotors for the front, and Raybestos Amico rotors for the rear (nobody around here had any PG Plus rotors for the rear in stock.) Here's hoping this stuff lasts a looooooooong time!

 

GM can never really seem to perfect rear disc brakes!

The rear brakes on my truck are similar to the gen 2 W's. They're also a fairly new design, used 99-04, but in 05 they went back to drums.

Have you encountered any problems with your truck's rear brakes? They must've had a ton of complaints if they went back to drums (kinda like the 95+ Luminas...)

[GnatGoSplat]

GM can never really seem to perfect rear disc brakes!

The rear brakes on my truck are similar to the gen 2 W's. They're also a fairly new design, used 99-04, but in 05 they went back to drums.

Have you encountered any problems with your truck's rear brakes? They must've had a ton of complaints if they went back to drums (kinda like the 95+ Luminas...)

 

Problems, yes. Problems that I care about, no.

As far as braking goes, they're fine. The park brake however, doesn't hold at all. It's a very common problem. I should probably try to fix it since I do park the truck on a pretty steep driveway, although I've been parking it there for nearly 4yrs without a problem so I'm not that motivated to fix it.

Yeah, it's very similar to what they did with the 95+ Luminas.

 

[DiscoStudd]

Well I found a "solution" for the problem. An expensive one, but (hopefully) a solution:

 

http://www.impalahq.com/HowTo/Baer.html

 

http://www.baer.com/Products/App_Guide_files/20050822_ApplicationGuide.pdf

 

$1200 per axle directly from BAER, $830 for the front set from GMPartsDirect, $910 for the rears.

 

Front Set from GMPD

Rear Set from GMPD

 

Let's see, I should have enough equity built up in my house to take out a second mortgage for these suckers in a couple of years ...

[Brian P]

This is SO much more common than you could ever imagine. I think the issue is, and a couple of mechanics at my job discussed this, the factory rotors are cheap shit steel probably from China. My dad's '05 Envoy is starting to do this at the rears, and a little bit up front, and it's driven DAILY. The rotors pit, the pits rust, the steel starts to flake off in spots, and the pads get beaten up and don't contact the rotor anymore in those certain spots. Not to mention, GM rotors from around '00+ almost can never be resurfaced, they're always at or under thickness spec. My sister's '02 GP's rear brakes looked just like your Impy's, and IIRC around the same mileage too! The pads had a good 4-5/32 of material left, but the rotors were destroyed. If anyone else has an explanation as to why this happens, I'm DYING to hear it.

[slick]

Actually, if you pay attention, a lot of newer vehicle's in the next few years may be switching back to drums. They just work a lot better, and are less problematic for the engineers.

[DiscoStudd]

This is SO much more common than you could ever imagine. I think the issue is, and a couple of mechanics at my job discussed this, the factory rotors are cheap shit steel probably from China. My dad's '05 Envoy is starting to do this at the rears, and a little bit up front, and it's driven DAILY. The rotors pit, the pits rust, the steel starts to flake off in spots, and the pads get beaten up and don't contact the rotor anymore in those certain spots. Not to mention, GM rotors from around '00+ almost can never be resurfaced, they're always at or under thickness spec. My sister's '02 GP's rear brakes looked just like your Impy's, and IIRC around the same mileage too! The pads had a good 4-5/32 of material left, but the rotors were destroyed. If anyone else has an explanation as to why this happens, I'm DYING to hear it.

So hopefully those Raybestos rotors I bought will last a tad bit longer! Fuckin' GM and their shitty shit. Well I try to look on the bright side, if I bought a year-old Honda instead of a year-old Chevy, I'd have probably paid twice the price for the car and would be paying $600 to replace the timing belt in another 6k miles. So I guess swallowing three and a quarter doesn't seem too bad, seeing as everything else on the car has performed flawlessly...

[Brian P]

This is SO much more common than you could ever imagine. I think the issue is, and a couple of mechanics at my job discussed this, the factory rotors are cheap shit steel probably from China. My dad's '05 Envoy is starting to do this at the rears, and a little bit up front, and it's driven DAILY. The rotors pit, the pits rust, the steel starts to flake off in spots, and the pads get beaten up and don't contact the rotor anymore in those certain spots. Not to mention, GM rotors from around '00+ almost can never be resurfaced, they're always at or under thickness spec. My sister's '02 GP's rear brakes looked just like your Impy's, and IIRC around the same mileage too! The pads had a good 4-5/32 of material left, but the rotors were destroyed. If anyone else has an explanation as to why this happens, I'm DYING to hear it.

So hopefully those Raybestos rotors I bought will last a tad bit longer! Fuckin' GM and their shitty shit. Well I try to look on the bright side, if I bought a year-old Honda instead of a year-old Chevy, I'd have probably paid twice the price for the car and would be paying $600 to replace the timing belt in another 6k miles. So I guess swallowing three and a quarter doesn't seem too bad, seeing as everything else on the car has performed flawlessly...

 

Yeah as long as you went with Raybestos, the mid-grade Pronto, or anything not stamped "China" then you'll be ok. I think GM cheapens out on the wrong things, I mean our Envoy has around 23,000 and the rotors need to be changed. I'll take a pic of it before I change it all. The brake pedal pulsates and makes rubbing sounds especially when cold. GM won't cover that under warranty, and this is a near $40,000 vehicle. It's things like this that remind me it's NEVER worth it to buy a GM at MSRP.

[DiscoStudd]

It's things like this that remind me it's NEVER worth it to buy a GM at MSRP.

I couldn't agree more. You can bet it's things like that that cause GM's to take such a huge hit in depreciation after the first year.

 

Which is just fine by me...