Braking problem

shawn474

I was under the impression that dimpled (which the EBC are) and the drilled are vastly different. Is that not the case?

concealer404

shawn474 wrote: »

I was under the impression that dimpled (which the EBC are) and the drilled are vastly different. Is that not the case?

Oh hell... i just glanced at the picture, my bad. You are correct. Carry on!

gdb

That package looks good to me, especially since the rotors are only "dimpled" and not thru-drilled like concealer warned against. I'll gladly trade off some pad life to get better performance any day! One thing.....do not trust the wear indicators to inform you when the pad is getting too thin, half the time they break off either before the lining wears down,or, the very first time it contacts the rotor's surface! Visual inspection is the best way to insure that you don't trash those pretty rotors with steel on steel contact !!:eek:

shawn474

Thanks guys..........last question. How hard are they to install? I am relatively handy and have a good idea on how to do it (my brother and I have replaced rotors and pads on his last 4 cars). I just worry that I may be getting in a little too far over my head. I have the step by step instructions on how to do it and basically would allot myself a lot more time than recommended, but is there anything I should be concerned about, anything to watch out for, tricks of the trade, etc?

concealer404

shawn474 wrote: »

Thanks guys..........last question. How hard are they to install? I am relatively handy and have a good idea on how to do it (my brother and I have replaced rotors and pads on his last 4 cars). I just worry that I may be getting in a little too far over my head. I have the step by step instructions on how to do it and basically would allot myself a lot more time than recommended, but is there anything I should be concerned about, anything to watch out for, tricks of the trade, etc?

Easy. The hardest part about it for me at least, would be lugging those huge wheels and tires on and off the hub.

It's a relatively recent car, you won't have to deal with rusted bolts, and i doubt anything will be seized up. If you can change your oil, you can change rotors and pads.

You'll be fine. If you run into problems, post up on here with some pictures, and i'm sure we can help you out.

The hardest part will be getting the new pads on there and compressing the piston far enough to fit over the new rotors. If you have a c-clamp or that nifty caliper tool, it's all gravy.

Different animal, but replacing rotors and pads on my Celica is a 45 minute job for all 4 corners.

Jstas

I have slotted and cross-drilled rotors on the front axle of my truck as well as ferro-carbon pads all around. Thing stops on a dime and makes change.

But my rotors came from Raybestos and I just had my truck in for the 120,000 mile service and had them check brakes. I've had those rotors and pads on the truck since June 2007 and they said I have at least another 15,000 miles on them. No cracking, no glazing no nothing and the truck is driven every day.

The stock brakes, I replaced 4 times in 80,000 miles and every time it was new rotor/hub assemblies because the stock brakes were chewing up the rotors. I put these cross-drilled and slotted rotors on and I have had no issues. Steady, predictable performance, ZERO fade issues and cheaper than the stock parts. $280 an axle for parts vs $320 for dealer parts.

If you are going to buy cross-drilled and slotted rotors, you need to go with a company that treats the rotors after the milling is finished. They can either heat the rotor up to basically weld any stress fractures from the milling process back up or they can cool the rotors to extreme temperatures which forces the crystalline structures of the metal to line up and increase strength. If you go with an EBC or Baer or any one of the other big name brake companies, they will treat any non-solid rotor the same way. The only problem with performance rotors is that they can't be turned down if out of true so if they are messed up, you have to replace them.

Norm Apter

nooshinjohn wrote: »

I would at least touch bases with the dealer, as it may still be a warranty issue. This would of course depend on mileage and other factors. A binding caliper is not considered a wear item like pads and rotors are. If you are out of warranty, take it to Midas or somewhere similar.

Unfortunately, the warranty expired in April (3 years) so I'll have to go another route. I just made an appointment at a nearby shop in Santa Monica called Kondo Motors to have them look at it tomorrow. They've been around for over 25 years and seem to get good on-line customer feedback / reviews. So, I'll give them shot. As I gather from all of the discussion, the source of the problem is most likely binding /sticky calipers, which then in turn may have damaged the rotors and pads. I'll see what they have to say.

If it doesn't work out there, have you guys used Midas as John mentioned? Do they seem reliable? I appreciate the links to parts, but I'm going to have to get this done professionally even if its an expensive operation (ugh...)

Jstas

Midas is hit or miss. They aren't company owned but rather franchised in many cases. So one Midas in one town could be complete poo while the Midas in the next town over is spectacular.

Midas is cheap and competes with mom and pop places because they don't pay very well and turnover in the shops is high for employment. Typically though you can get a decent job done there 'cause you need documented experience or skills to work there. They just don't pay well so guys get disenchanted with the deal and work suffers 'cause they just don't care anymore. There are franchises though so not ALL are like that. Places like a Goodyear or Firestone service center are typically between a mom and pop and a dealer service department in price. So you get better prices than a dealer, a better warranty on work than a mom and pop and a dealer level service experience.

If you want to go with a Pep Boys or Discount Tire place, they can compete with the mom and pop places because they have their own parts source and undercut on parts prices to be competitive. Often times they are quite good at the repairs but they get so much work that even with 8+ bays they are still over worked. That can result in poor quality.

If you go to a place like Just Tires or NTB or something, be VERY careful because most of the people in the shop are high school kids just out of shop class or guys who have hands and can turn a wrench that the company trained. I've seen more than one car getting more than tires and an alignment done be destroyed by one of those places due to an over-confident yet inexperienced "mechanic". Hell, I've had to fix some of the screw ups!

Every place has it's monkeys and it's stars. Mom and pop places are typically owned by the mechanic doing the work and they take great pride in what they do. They also are much more thorough in their hiring practices so the secondary guy isn't a tool in many cases. Even if it's just a guy to sling tires and do oil changes, they have a much closer supervision over them.

So go with who you want. Some things to look out for. Is the shop clean (well as clean as a place like that can be)? Is it tidy? Does it seem chaotic and hassled? How is the service writer/mechanic's attitude towards customers? Is the lot full of cars? If so, how long have they been sitting there (easy to tell, is there a heavy layer of dust? Is there grass and weeds?)? A full lot isn't necessarily a bad thing. If the cars turn over quickly that means the guy hustles and obviously people keep coming back because he has a steady flow of work. Guys who have work often get parts discounts due to volume as well. I know in the mom and pop place I worked, we'd pass savings on to customers as much as we could.

If you walk in to a place and you get a bad vibe, trust your gut. More times than not, it's gonna be a bad deal in one way or another. Clean, orderly garages with clean cut employees have a much nicer feel to them and put customers more at ease than funky ones. Those are the smart guys that know a happy customer comes back. The funky ones just cater to the people looking for the cheap deal. They don't care if you come back or not because there's a line of cheapskates behind you that will put food on the table just as well.

One last thing, dealers are the only ones with the money to afford the high tech equipment to service cars that need major work, especially with computers and such. What you save in diagnostic time you pick up in cost because those machines are extremely expensive and they have to charge high cost diag time to cover the costs. A mom and pop can do the same with a multimeter, code reader and some reference material but it takes much longer. So you lose time and diags can take much longer, especially if the problem is elusive. So you can save money on labor at a mom and pop because they are cheaper but diags can take much longer and make up a portion of the savings. Dealers have the high tech equipment and very trained techs but you pay for it. The middle guys like Firestone and Goodyear can get some of the high tech equipment and have trained techs but again, they have a profit margin to maintain. You get good service but you pay for it and it can be as impersonal as a dealer. A mom and pop place will likely know your name when you are done and shake your hand with a thank you. Different experiences, different levels of service. All of them will fix your car though. Do your research and you won't have to worry if they are going to do it right.

However, for brake work, it's brakes. Not a real difficult prospect. You pop the wheels off, poke around with a screw driver and flashlight, maybe some Brakekleen and you know what needs to be done in less than 20 minutes. Brakes are an in and out deal and most of the cost is in parts. Depending on complexity, when I was working as a mechanic, I could do a full brake job (all 4 corners) in about 60-90 minutes. It'd take longer if the system had to be bled and if the rotors had to be turned.

Norm Apter

Awesome response, Jstas. I don't think I could ask for a more thorough and well-rounded analysis. I think I might make a PDF file out of it, copyright Jstas 2009.

Thanks for taking the time to put it together. I'll give this locally owned mom-and-pop shop, Kondo Motors, a shot. If it doesn't work out there, then I'll try to locate a local Pep Boys or the like that fits your description above of what to look for in a shop.

Jstas

Norm Apter wrote: »

Awesome response, Jstas. I don't think I could ask for a more thorough and well-rounded analysis. I think I might make a PDF file out of it, copyright Jstas 2009.

Thanks for taking the time to put it together. I'll give this locally owned mom-and-pop shop, Kondo Motors, a shot. If it doesn't work out there, then I'll try to locate a local Pep Boys or the like that fits your description above of what to look for in a shop.

Well, I've worked at a dealer, at a Pep Boys and at a mom and pop. My comments are first hand experience. The crooks are not as numerous as many would have it seem. Many people who lack the knowledge to understand what the mechanic is talking about feel like they get swindled and label the mechanic a crook because they just don't know. In reality, the mechanic has to eat too, ya know? Their not **** you but doing their best to get you fixed right the first time for a reasonable price. Believe me, they HATE seeing you come back for any other reason than a new problem. Usually people forget about you until something goes wrong. If you come back for issues with the work done, not only are pissed off and difficult to deal with but I'm likely gonna hafta eat at least labor, maybe parts, just to make you happy. Not good at all.

At the same time though, I've had customer vehicles take forever to repair. One took me almost 20 hours to repair, mostly because of a "fix" the customer did that had to get straightened out before I could fix the real problem. I only charged 10 hours of labor to help the guy out because parts were expensive and he was crying poor mouth and I still got accused of jacking up the price. So it can also be a thankless job. But if you get work done and you aren't sure what it was, ask the guy to show you. He'll be more than happy to do it because then you will know and understand and it reduces the chance that you come back in a fit because you didn't understand what happened and something else that you think might be related but isn't broke and you're blaming him.

It's a trust relationship and most don't want to violate that because if you trust the guy not only will you come back but when a friend or family member has an issue, you're gonna send him even more work and that makes him REALLY happy.

Norm Apter

I just got my car back from the local mom-and-pop type place in Santa Monica.

Here's what happened, according to them. The root of the trouble was a flaw/break in the Brake Master Cylinder. I'm not sure if it was a crack or just an internal part that malfunctioned, but whatever happened it began failing to disperse fluid (I think he said hydraulic fluid of some sort) to the calipers. This resulted in them freezing up (i.e. not releasing) from time to time. Anyway, I had to get the Brake Master Cylinder replaced, plus two new brake calipers. They inspected the rotors and the pads and reported that these itmes were not damaged / warped so those did not need replacing. They also did a full brake flush.

So, this is what it came to:

Parts:
Brake Master Cylinder: 220.00
2 Calipers: 260.00

Labor: 260.00

---

Grand total: $740.00 (plus tax on parts)

I guess its frustrating that the cylinder failed so early on this car's life. Its a 2006 with 37,000 miles on it. The guy at the auto shop said that this kind of failure is rare and hadn't noticed a pattern. However, the comments above from various posters who own Nissans suggest that problems in Nissan braking systems are not uncommon and may be a weak point in their manufacture. Well, the car feels so much better now and I feel much safer driving. If, over the following months, it appears that the work they did today on my car did indeed solve the problem then I might have found myself a reliable auto shop for the future as well.

ben62670

They were fair. I would use them again. Glad to see you have your brakes safe again.
Ben

Serendipity

I had the same exact problem with my Nissan and ended up replacing the brake hoses along with two calipers. I got upgraded stainless steel ones and they made a difference in the braking feel.

Overall, when they work, Nissans are reliable. However, over the past year, I've had to replace the following:

Alternator (battery went dead a while later) - $7xx from dealer
Starter (made noise before it went) - $5xx from dealer
Dead Battery (probably because of the charging issues)
Ignition Coils - $780 from the dealer!!
Thermostat (still have occasional problems, might need a radiator)
Front Struts - $550 or so, I don't remember
Rear Struts - $415 or so...
2 Brake Calipers + Brake hoses
Rear Brake Pads (did this myself) - $80

Then maintenance items which I did myself:
1. Changed oil and oil filter
2. Cleaned K&N Air Filter
3. Top off brake fluid (just needed a little)
4. Added power steering fluid
5. In-Cabin Microfilter
6. Added battery fluid (needed a little)
7. Transmission Fluid Change
8. Flushed Radiator (still running hot, not sure why)

Still needs the following:
Exhaust / Muffler - $400 or so, I want to do this myself
Might need a radiator?

Just wanted to let you know what maintenance I had to do recently...