Brake Calibers: Lesson Learned

I'd say about a month has gone by since I changed my fiancées brake pads and rotors. That was the easy part, from the start I thought it was going to be more difcult because I had to take a bolt out of what I think was the control arm, because it turns out the caliber bracket bolt is wedged between the arm and rotor.

So that had to be done before I could even start, now I don't claim to be anything more than a novice seeking to learn and grow deeper in the knowledge of vehicles to not only save money, to also help others including the ones I love. So here's the problem.. I didn't originally plan to be taking off the bracket or the caliber from the car.

I quickly found out that whenever you put brake pads on bad rotors the pads you just spent your hard earned money on are going to be turned to dust in the blink of an eye. Okay, no problem. I then change the rotors on the back of the car and pads at the same time to avoid that problem. I knew that this should be done from my experience with my previous vehicle (2005 Mazda 3) another story for another time.

Shorty after changing the rotors and the pads on the 2008 Kia Optima I had to take the caliber off of, this being after the fact. A loud grinding noise starts coming from the back of her vehicle, so we decide to take a look at what is going on. Upon inspection the pads had been completly melted away.

I thought how could this be? on a side note the old rotors didn't get replaced until the grinding noise occurred because of the caliber being seized. The point is, if your going to replace your brake pads, you're better off replacing the rotors too. Now in this case the brake pads wasted away so quickly not only from the rotors being bad, it was caused by the caliber being seized and over time from it not decompressing the brake pad from the rotor leaving it there to be given half the life it should have lived.

It was very apparent to me that it is best to change the front pads together and the back together so you get even pad wear and the same principle is applied for rotors and today I learned it's that same principle you want to follow when changing calibers.

Because I didn't change the other side thinking it was fine the car thought otherwise and shorty after stopped disingauging the caliber piston from the brake pad releasing it from the rotor thus destroying the pads I had just recently replaced. Well they would have been if I didn't catch it before it was to late, that's what happened with the Mazda 3 I had.

Today when I brought the car into the shop I found out that was exactly the problem I was dealing with, so from now on whenever I change Brakes, Rotors, and even Calibers! I'll make sure to replace all of these parts in pairs to prevent any further heartache. I'm thankful I have people around me to learn from and the environment to get the job done. Not only to get it done, to get it done right the first time.

Please learn from my mistake, you'll either save a lot of money if you DIY (do it yourself) or save yourself from having to do the job literally all over again because you didn't know a piece of crucial information.

Thank you for reading and if you have any comments please share, feel free to chime in with any suggestions constructive criticism or positive feedback - B