Hey everyone. My truck seems to be taking a long time to come to a stop. It is especially bad going down hills. It also sometimes makes a squeal coming from the front wheels when they are applied. The pedal is NOT going to the floor, but I do have to push it 1-2" down to get any braking action and it stops there (it stops like 1" above the gas pedal at idle). I have had the master cylinder, rear calipers, pads and rotors (1 new and 1 turned) replaced in the past 2 months. It DOES NOT leak brake fluid. The lines are a bit rusty, but are not leaking and I have been keeping paint on them to keep them from rusting further. The brake booster has been checked and determined to be working great.

The front pads and rotors were replaced last year about 20k ago. Should I be looking into getting new calipers and pads on the front? I can't really see the pad through the wheel, but it looks to be okay. Thanks

 

I would pull the front wheels off and check the pads they may be glazed over from a few hard stops, also check the bushings that the caliper slides on, make sure they slide freely from side to side.

 

How do I tell if they are glazed? Are the bushings replaced when the caliper is replaced? I might just have the calipers replaced anyway since the rear ones failed 2 months ago and caused 2 complete brake failures and almost caused a fire. The front ones have some rust and are original as far as I know. I had the truck since 58k and I have almost 93k on it now and I have never had the front ones replaced.

 

If you hold the pads just right you can see if they are glazed, they will be shiny. Pretty sure there are new bushings included with the calipers, you can also just get the bushings, you need to jack it up tho and check if the calipers slide back and forth, if not then the bushings will be a cheap fix and should fix the problem.

 

Ok thanks. If I do end up having all that work done, which type of pads should I have put on my truck? Ceramic? Semi-metallic? I do alot of high speed and mountain driving. I don't know what are on the rear, but I am sure that they are not ceramic. Thanks.

 

Well I usually go with ceramics, semi-metallic chew up the rotors more, I can usually change my pads about 4 times on 1 set of rotors compared to twice with semi-metallic. But in your case with a lot of mountain driving I would go with semi-metallic pads, it all depends on what you want.

 

Ok thanks for the tip. Is it a trade off with semi-metallics? Better braking but at the expense of the rotors and more dust? But ceramics don't grip as well but they save the rotors and produce less dust? I just want the best braking possible. I don't mind the dust or any noise because dust I can just clean off and the noise I could just ignore. The rotors would not last longer with ceramics on my car because they would rust out from driving in the harsh NY winters before I could benefit from ceramic pads making them last longer.

EDIT: This might sound a bit weird, but on a hunch, I found a rural road and put the truck in 4HI and stayed below 15 mph. The truck actually seemed to stop a little better. What's up with that?

 

In your case then on hills you want the best braking, so I would go with semi-metallic. When you are in 4X4 your drivetrain is all locked together and braking will be better than in 2 wheel drive, since the front brakes do 60% or more of the stopping when in 4X4 it will be 50/50 since your drivetrain is locked as 1, as soon as the rear brakes start to slow you down it will transfer the braking thru the drivetrain or vise versa, sorry I really don't know a better way to explain it, hope you understand it

 

I understand it alot better now. I knew that the 4WD on these trucks is a part time system with a 50/50 split, but I didn't know that the braking would be transfered back through the drivetrain to brake all the wheels that way. Thanks.

 

Ok, I have made an appointment for tomorrow. The shop will replace the pads and calipers and they will reuse the rotors since they are only a year old. They will probably turn them if needed. They are using semi-metallic pads and calipers that come with all the hardware needed to install them. I am not taking any chances.