[TiZBaD99]

My brakes are messed up.

I was driving along a little agressivly and was thinking nothing of it until i had to stop fairly hard at a red light. When i tried to brake the pedal gave less resistance than usual and didnt feel like it was braking as hard as it used to. I then noticed some smoke/vapor coming from my right wheel. I pulled over at a nearby parking lot to check for leaks. With the car off the pedal was as stiff as ever and didnt budge after a few pumps. I checked the resevoir for level and it was full to the brim. I checked under tha caliper for leaks but didnt find any puddle but harcore smelled some fluid that burnt up.

As some background, i changed the pads last week, but i didnt have to take the calipers off so i didnt mess with the line. After installing the new pads i had increased resistance and didnt have to press the pedal down as much. But after this incident the pedal seems to have gone back to just a little bit worse than it used to be before pads

 

[88MX6GT]

Sounds to me that you just smoked your brakes. The you say it gave less resistance than usual that was probably the brakes fading b/c they got really hot. The "smoke" you saw was probably steam from extremely hot brakes. I have Axxis Pads and cross-drilled rotors and have seen mine "steam" sometimes when I abuse them or stop sorta fast from 100mph+. If you have stock pads you probably just fried them (by stock I mean just basic new pads instead of some performance ones).

 

[TiZBaD99]

yeah i have axxis metal masters on the front, and it was the front right that was smoking. But now it still gives less resistance than before. Should i be worried? The smell was really strong.

 

[el norm]

well, i don;t know it depends on how hard you stopped, if it's the hardest you've stopped then ever before then i'd say that is probably nothing to worry about. I had a few times where i was driving pretty hard and my brakes got so hot that my stopping power changed really dramatically and kinda scared me. never seen smoke before but i've smelled my brake pads before.

If i were you i would take the time to take the wheel off and at least take a look for any leaks and see if you can push the caliper in if it's seized or not or jus anything abnormal. I doubt there is any problem but i can't judge it from here and i don;t know your driving habits...

 

[SleepCounter]

Sounds like a siezed piston to me. Did you push the pistons back into the calipers before you installed the new pads? Did they both retract easily?

 

[mx6GT91]

I remember when I let my friend drive my car (the one with the fast as CRX) and when he pulled up my brakes were smoking?? He asked if he could smell my clutch and i noticed that my brakes were smokin. hehe

It happend because of really hard brakeing thats all. Im running stock rotors and semi metalic pads

 

[TiZBaD99]

Yes when i installed the new pads i pushed the pistons back in and the did retract easily, not that they are easy to push in, but they were not siezed.

This stop was not the hardest stop ever, I have stopped harder before.

I didnt drive it after too much after the incident, im going to take off the wheels tommorow and see whats going on, i had too much studying to do today to work on the car.

lets say that it was a siezed piston, what is that going to cost me? will i have to replace the whole caliper?


edit: just found out that it would cost me $171 for the entire caliper assembly and $40 for a new piston.

 

[el norm]

i'd get a low mileage junker if i were you, you'll probably pay a fraction of the cost.

 

[Guest]

Most of the time the core on a loaded caliper is more than what a shop would pay for the caliper anyways, so if you have a friend at a shop you can usually get them to get it for you.

 

[magik8]

$171 for a brake caliper? I don't think so. They should be less than $50 each for reman units. Call around. Definitely don't get a junkyard brake caliper as they're probably about shot as well.

Keep in mind also that if you replace a caliper you're going to need to get the hydraulic system bled of air.

 

[TiZBaD99]

well it turns out i can get the whole caliper assembly for $54 from a local autoshop. I know that im going to have to bleed the brakes and put in new fluid. First i have to get a good look at what happened, Driving is basically back to normal now. Im not going to buy anything untill i am really sure of what happened.

 

[88MX6GT]

Just in case you do end up replacing a caliper, it is recommended you do both sides at the same time and not just one. It will put more stress on the old one and cause it to fail. Just so ya know.

 

[TiZBaD99]

tanx