Why do you need front brake service?

VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION: BASIC FRONT DISC BRAKE SERVICE

Allow me to show you what is included in your purchase of a basic front disc brake service here at Louie and John’s Complete Auto Service.

So your certified master technician will remove your tire, which resides right here, and below are the brakes. Your brakes include a hydraulic brake caliper, a brake caliper bracket that includes the pads on the inside, and also a front disc brake rotor. Your certified master technician will pull apart the bolts off the caliper and remove the caliper, and then proceed to pin it off to the side, and the reason why I say pin it off to the side–and that’s important to know–is because right here, there’s a hydraulic brake hose that if it gets hung, it’ll stretch and potentially break. We don’t want that to happen.

After that, your certified master technician will pull off your brake pads. There’s an outboard pad and an inboard pad–they’ll remove both of them, also removing the shims. The shims themselves are stainless steel. The kit of brand new brakes comes with a new set of shims. There’s a total of four total shims: an upper one and a lower one on this side, and also the same on that side, total of four. Your certified master technician will then proceed to make sure that the actual bracket pins are loose on the bottom and on the top–like this, going in and out easily, very effortlessly. If these are stuck, there’s an additional service to actually pull them apart and actually clean them. We have to take a torch and literally heat up the top here until they’re hot, then we wiggle the pins out from the rust that they’re stuck in, clean them, hone them, put them back together, and then they go back together along with a brand new set of boots that way everything is nice and loose.

From that point, they will remove the front disc brake rotor. This front disc brake rotor has been on the car not for too long. A brand new rotor that came out of the box looks nice and shiny, specified for this car–this is the exact rotor for this car. From that point, they will refasten everything back together along with a brand new set of brake pads. A brand new set of brake pads comes as a set. There’s four total front disc brake pads in a basic front disc brake service. There’s an outboard pad, like I said, an inboard pad on this side, and then the same thing on that side. One, two, three, four total there. So, that’s whats comprised of a basic front disc brake service including rotors here at Louie and John’s Complete Auto Service.

Okay, here is the additional service to actually pull apart the front guide pins off the caliper pad guide bracket. What happens a lot of times, if you look at the bottom here, this pin is physically stuck and it will not move. These pins are supposed to move like this: you’re supposed to put them in and they’re supposed to move butter-smooth just like this. Many times when these pins get stuck, especially here in Michigan, what we have to do is physically take the bracket off, put it onto a vice, and physically heat these surfaces cherry red and start to wiggle these pins out because they are physically frozen inside. That takes approximately an extra 40 minutes and we have to do it to all four pins–the bottom one, the top one on this side, and same thing on the other side of the car. So there’s a slight additional charge to make sure that your original bracket is in good shape and the pins are lubricated and reinstalled, and you can see we will replace not only the lubricant that’s on them, we’ll hone them to a nice shiny surface, and well also replace the rubber ends. Once they go inside, we will also replace the actual boots themselves. Once they go, that’s what they’re supposed to look like.

Okay, so here are some other things that can go actually awry when your master certified technician is actually repairing your front disk brakes on your vehicle. So, these are what are called the hydraulic brake calipers and if you notice, there are two pistons. They are literally pushed back in by the power of your service technician, and they need to go back in in order to accommodate the new width of the brand new brake pads going into these brackets right here.

And, continuing on with the same vehicle, for example, what happens is this hydraulic brake caliper, the pistons are actually stuck. So no matter with how much force we apply to push them back into their bore, they get stuck out which means that your vehicle will also need hydraulic brake calipers. So these are some of the contingencies that we see here at Louie and John’s Complete Auto Service. This one is a hydraulic brake caliper malfunction that is needed on top of the pads and the rotors, which we’ll get you an estimate on as well.