My #1 complaint of my 2019 Ford since buying new was the need to get the brake rotors re-surfaced every 15-20K miles. Ford replaced all 4 rotors under warranty at 33,000 mile and turned them again around 50K miles. Now at 63K miles, I decided to take them off myself and have the local brake shop turn them. Upon disassembly, I noticed the passenger side pads had a noticeable difference in pad thickness. Other than that, the rotors looked fine with no odd wear on them. For the record, I'm really easy on brakes and they tend to last on my vehicles a very long time.

The brake shop said the rotors did indeed have a slight wobble and ended up cutting both rotors twice. When I went to install everything, I noticed that the lower brake caliper bolt on the passenger side would not slide in an out as it is supposed to within the bracket. I ended up taking the bracket back off and had to use significant heat and persuasion to get this sliding bolt out. The rubber sleeve was still in place and looked fine, but a picture of my bolt is below.

The only people to touch the brakes before me this weekend was the local Ford dealership. I also live in Colorado and the truck usually stays in doors when the weather is especially crummy. Pretty sure my accelerated pad wear was due to this seized bolt and it probably helped heat up my rotors a little bit as well

I wire wheeled this bolt and used a drill bit to get the very dried out grease out of the bolt hole. I re-greased everything and put it all back together. I'll have Ford replace the bracket next time I go in for warranty work.

If you are having brake issues and/or significant discrepancy in pad thickness, it might be worth checking your brake caliper bolts as well.

Adam

 

that pin seems very bad shape for how new the truck is. no wonder pads were burning up

 

With so few miles between repairs that pin should not look like that. I hope all slide pins were cleaned and properly lubed and the holes the pins slide in were cleaned out. Wouldn't do much good putting it back in a dirty hole.

 

FYI you can buy a pin kit at Napa. Forget the dealer and do it right yourself. Why would you have them do it again when they already had 3 chances and messed up every time?

I am convinced when the dealers do brakes the most they do is remove the one bolt and flip up the calipers and install new pads and reassemble.

 

napa sells the bolts and all other hardware. Time to start over and use to of the grease for that purpose.

Need to wash those brake down when washing the truck.

 

I've never had brake rotors need attention at 15-20k miles. I also haven't heard anything about rotors being turned in many years either. In today's world it's usually remove, recycle, replace.
Always something to be learned from this forum.

 

No shops by me will turn rotors anymore, claiming it is cheaper to replace vs labor and equipment to competently turn them down flat again.

I have had rotors go out of round on a bunch of vehicles over the years within 20-30k. The worst was a 2002 Olds Alero that warped rotors seemingly every 8k or so. I also had a 2008 Chevy Malibu that would constantly seize a caliper slide pin on one side of the front or the other. Both my 2016 Ram 2500 and 2017 Pacifica needed new front rotors at the same time a couple of years ago. Maybe it's driving style. Maybe it's cheaper part quality. Maybe it's luck or lack thereof.

 

i've got an 18 f250, my last brake job, first when since i bought it used and at least 1 pin on each caliper bracket was so damn seized i needed new pin kits after it took me about 3 hours to remove the pins from 2 brackets. i needed to buy a 4th bracket for one of the rears. my truck would pull right when breaking and i was cussin an alignment for the longest time till i realized the caliper was dragging. such a pain the *** it was

 

All of my vehicles when i swap from winter to summer tires all 4 calipers get pulled to clean and lube those slide pins, and also make sure the pads slide freely in the clips they ride in. Rust build up behind the clips can make the pads themselves bind up in that bracket so even if your slide pins were free you would still get uneven wear. The extra 10 minutes a wheel while swapping tires or doing rotations is worth it while you already have the tools out.

But my wifes car ('16 malibu) for some reason will have the slide pins stuck every time i pull it apart, i never find any rust or corrosion on the slide pins they just are stuck and the grease is all gummed up, give them a few rotations and they free right up. I have used general sil glyde, never sieze, permatex extreme ceramic brake part lubricant, and CRC black synthetic brake and caliper grease with PTFE and every flavor ends up the same stuck gummed up slide pins! I have cleaned all the holes good out before swapping lubricants and they still gum up. All my other vehicles i just use cheap sil glyde and they are always good to go.

 

Yea, something doesnt seem right. That slide pin wasnt lubed. Was the rubber boot intact? FWIW, rotors and pads on my f350 go easily 60K miles.

 

Just yesterday I removed all my break calipers and pads on my 19 XLT to inspect them (bought truck 6 months ago with new front brakes from the Ford dealer). Removed and lubed all slider pins and greased up the pad sliders, etc. I actually did it for 2 reasons, inspection and had a slight pull to the left even after 2 alignments. Well the pull to the left is gone and my brakes are in great shape, so I think something was sticking on the left side somewhere. I did tear 1 slider pin boot, so a 4 pack from O'Reilly's is being purchased today.

 

What I have seen in my lifetime is that most people who do brake jobs do not lubricate the slide pins properly and/or do not use the correct grease to lube them with. This in turn causes all kinds of problems with irregular pad wear, failed calipers, and warped rotors.

 

O’Reilly Auto Parts offers brake drum and rotor resurfacing for most passenger cars, light- and medium-duty trucks and SUVs in a lot of stores. Don't know where in NE Ohio you live but there are a bunch of stores up that way. Call them before you bring them anything because I have found that often times there are one or two "old guys" that know how to use the machine so they don't turn rotors every day of the week.

 

Interesting, when I did the front pads and rotors on my truck the lower slide pins were seized to the point they wouldn't come out. I ended up but running down to Napa and picking up a pair of semi-loaded calipers and replaced the whole thing. Wonder if there was a bad batch of these in 2019 maybe or just poor luck.

 

A few comments:
- A LOT of shops, whether the dealer or a brake shop, don't pull the caliper all the way off anymore - you don't have to. All you have to do is pull the top bolt that holds the caliper, flip the whole caliper up, compress the piston, pull old pads/put in new pads, flip the caliper back down, and reinstall the bolt. They likely never pulled the slide pins at all, thus they were likely never lubed. Even when they replaced your rotors they probably pulled the entire caliper/pad/bracket assembly off, swapped rotors, and put the old assembly back on. (FWIW I NEVER do brakes this way - I do a full disassembly).
- The lower slide pins, either front or rear, tend to be the pin that's going to lock up - any and all water, thanks to gravity, flows down to it, and that little rubber boot NEVER seals out all the water. If you live in a state that uses salt, the issue gets compounded.
- Most parts places, even those that have been around a while, don't turn rotors anymore even if they have the equipment - they don't really turn a profit anymore when new/reman rotors are so cheap. Drums are a different story.
- There isn't much point in buying just the pin kit for calipers if the pins have been seized up (unless you're just doing the brakes to sell the vehicle) - chances are the hole isn't in any better shape than the old pin, so you might as well buy a new bracket - which is only $20 or so less than a complete caliper assembly, which includes new pins AND a new bracket. Installing the new caliper(s) also forces you to bleed the brakes, which should be done every now and then anyway.
- There are differing opinions on what the 'proper' amount of lube for slide pins is. Personally, I put on what I think is enough, then put a bit more on, then put it in the hole and make sure it goes in ALL the way and slides freely. I even re-lube the ones that come in the 'preassembled' caliper sets. Always use some kind of synthetic brake caliper grease, it holds up the best I've found.

That said, to OP - you should see a LOT more lifetime on your pads/rotors than that, unless you're doing a lot of stop/go traffic. I was able to rack up 90k on my old Wagon before it needed brakes. Of course, by that point it had seen 4 winters worth of salt and the rubber boots had started to break down, so it was a full replacement of brackets/pins/calipers all the way around.