I had the car in the shop last week to have the last recall done and asked the dealer to check why the handbrake light keeps (not all the time) lighting while I am driving.

Their answer? Rear rotors and pads finished. At 46 000 KM (28 750 miles) !

The front brakes still have 40 % life left in them.

How is that possible?

BTW, my car is a 2004 GT 6 speed.

 

Calipers are sticking and not releasing like it should and causing excessive wear on the pads and rotor????

That's what it sounds like. Whenever your rear pads/rotors wear out faster then the fronts then something isn't right.


Have you replaced your front pads before?

Otherwise, they are trying to pull a fast one on you.

 

i would have a very hard time believeing that the rotors need to be replaced unless you wore your pads down to the rivets and grooved the rotors. But in that case you would have heard some serious grinding.

Tell them to **** off and fix the sticking calipers under warranty as that is what is causing any problem with going throgh rear pads before front pads.


Unless of course you have put a very serious set of pads on the car and drive it very hard all the time.

 

I've never replaced the front pads before.

It's strange because I had my car in the shop for my last scheduled maintenance 3000 km ago and they never mentionned my brakes were in such a condition.

 

Ok. So it's either your brake caliper is not releasing and it keeps the brake pads on the rotors while you're driving or the shop is trying to feed you a bunch of malarkey.

 

either way tell them to make it stop at their cost.

 

Thanks for the replies.

Since I do feel weaker breaking I guess it has to be a caliper problem that developped after my last maintenance ?

That should be covered under warranty right?

 

Yes. It should be covered since it was a caliper failure. It's a pretty easy fix and shouldn't take long at all to fix either. They will HAVE to throw in new pads and rotors as well if they are both worn out.

keep us up to date on what's going on.

 

I will, I'm going to the dealer tomorrow.

 

sometimes like after you have washed the car and the emergency brake is on, and it sets, the next when you drive and think the emergency brake has released--it hasn't( all the way )and you can getting deep grooves on the disc. Its no good after that. I always wash my car now with the brake down.
olddragger

 

UPDATE

Well I talked with the service manager this morning. Turns out the guy who told me my rear brakes were done made a mistake. It's the front brakes that are finished. Rears are at 60 %, which makes a lot more sense.

Still, I told them I should have been warned at my last maintenance visit that the front pads were almost finished. Well, after a bit of arguing, the dealer is going to replace the front rotors under warranty and I'll have to pay for pads.

 

What's wrong with the rotors? Are the pads on the metal and grooving them.... good job they agreed to pay becuase those rotors are $250 each. You should have heard the sqeeling before the grooving occurred. One of the front 4 pads have this warning indicator.

That's a ridiculous price for rotors, but on the other hand my front rotors are still straight as an arrow at 52,000km with multiple track events and 2 sets of pads. My last vw warped the rotors every 20,000km. Whatever hardening processes and 'gold' plating Mazda are putting on these things, it's is certainly working.

At 48,000 I just saved my rear rotors. The pads were on the metal after a track day (squeeling all the way) and they just starting to groove the rotors. I put on a new set of pads only, hit the track and the mild grooves were gone after 10 hot laps.

 

My rotors have been warped since 20k miles and i'm pretty damn sure its because of the dealer not using the right torque spec. I tried to re torque my wheels and noticed that they were beyond 130ft pounds.......

I'm going to take it in and have them replace the rotors or machine them.

 

At my last schedule maintenance, I asked them to check for a grinding noise coming from the front of the car. The tech drove it in the parking lot and told me my brakes would need to be cleaned at my 48 000 km maintenance... Guess the pads were actually grooving the rotors...

On a another note, it's been a week since they've ordered the new rotors and they have not received them yet. Any idea what effect driving the car with the front brakes finished may have on the braking system? Of course, I've been driving it really smooth and have been easy on the brake pedal.