Brake issues
 

OK so over the last 2 weeks my brakes have been acting a little odd. When I would brake the car would pull to the left pretty heavily. It started out very small and became more common and a harder pull. I ordered up some pads and went to check if the pads were just shot on the front.

Last night after I got the new pads in:
I pull the front wheels and start to pull calipers, the drivers side pads had nearly 3/4 inch of meat left on them. Get to the passanger side, they are down to like 1/8th or less. The rotor is flaming hot, drivers side was taken apart first with no heat issues. The passanger side caliper was hard to compress, I couldn't compress it all the way with my squeeze clamp I normally use and had to get out a different option (old harmonic balancer puller with just the center threded rod pushing on the piston).
I tossed the new pads in just becuase I had them and I need to atleast have the car driveable in an emergency situation until I get this figured out.
I test drove it that way, still pulls to the left when braking now.

What would you call out being the problem here?

I am thinking a few things have happened.

As hot as the passanger side caliper and rotor were it may have boiled some fluid in that line.
The passanger side caliper is toasted and should be replaced (both will be replaced if I do one).
Any thoughts that the caliper was good before getting this hot and only wend bad because of the heat? What else would have caused this to die like that? Soemthing bad in the ABS system?

I guess I will order up a set of calipers from RockAuto or something (they are the cheapest I have seen, if there is a better option please let me know).

Yea i have recently painted my calipers and i needed to replace the front passenger side and rear driver side. Your caliper on the driver side was seized up and pulling your car to the left or the pass. is seized and just not working at all that at least what i got from it but yea best thing just order new. Also while their off you could throw some paint on them quick easy and makes stock look better.

Maybe you should check if the brakes are binding. Routine maintenance to sand down the brake pad sliding areas and the brake pad holder sliding surfaces. Also check if the glider bolts on the brake pad holder are gliding fine back and forth.. They're due to replacement every 5 years or so.

Other than that, is the brake pad fine? Are you sure both sides were replaced at the same time?

I am not sure both sides were replaced at the same time. I will pull the drivers side apart tonight if it isn't rainy and lube it all up. I lubed the passanger side when I had it apart but not the drivers side.

99AudiA4B5: What I was saying is the passanger side was the side with toasted pads and extremely excessive heat. I was a bit confused why if that was the side siezing up and heating like that I was pulling to the left. It woudl make sense to me that you would pull toward the side doing the most braking. Maybe the passanger side was just siezing and is not not working at all or something.

RockAuto has new calipers for like $60 each, seems like a decent price to me.

It sounds to me like you have a fluid issue with some possible line blockage. I would start by completely replacing your brake fluid. When you bleed each line watch carefully to make sure that the fluid is bleeding at the same rate as the others and watch to see if any debris comes out.

Well just ordered the new calipers for both sides in the front (even if it is something else the passanger side is completely toasted so I may as well replace them both).

When I do the calipers I will push the fluid through and see where it gets me.

I think what might have been happening is the bad caliper on the passanger side was forcing the pads to drag all the time. That got it really f'n hot and caused some fuild degredation/boiling and killed the braking power of that side. The drivers side then was doing the majority of the braking and pulling it to the left.

Even after a full brake job (less caliper) on the passanger side and having lifted the drivers side and pulled it apart the passanger side rotor was hot enough to boil spit on contact. lets say that was 45 minutes, a rotor shouldn't be that damn hot after 45 minutes unless it was really really hot when the car was stopped.

That *is* really really hot. After a 15min drive i could still touch my rotor when my handbrake got rusted stuck and didn't return properly. Your car should drive like shit, and almost completely block the wheel for that to happen...

Ya, when I was dealing with it I started realizing how bad it really was. Also when I got the caliper off and it wouldn't retract with my normal tools (done like 3 brake jobs with the squeeze clamp) and had to pull out the harmonic puller and us that to compress the piston I knew there were some problems. The dust seal around the piston was melted up a little too.

Hopefully everything gets in before Friday I would like to do this brake job this weekend and not have to daily drive (30 mi 1 way for work each day) the explorer any longer than I have to.