New brakes! smoke, pulls, need help!

futuref-body · 09-23-2008, 03:15 PM

My brakes started grinding bad so i finally went and bought Autozones $65 Duralast Gold CMax brake pads with lifetime warranty

. Driver side was fine. passenger side- inner pad=bottom already ground to the metal with a little pad left at the top. outer pad=bottom had little left but top looked brand new. even though the squealer on the passenger was on the inside before-i put the squealer on the outside like the driverside. Well i got everything on, pumped my brakes and went for a drive. i noticed that it pulled hard to the right. I could smell the ceramic burning but i thought that was since they were new. I let off the gas and woah-it slowed down quick! i got back on it and 2 miles down the road i could still smell the brakes so i pulled over and smoke was pouring out!

i also noticed that i can pump the brakes all the way to the firewall when the engine is running.

i no that my rotor is kind of warped and plan on getting them cut in a few days but could the rotor cause all this? anyone ever have this problem? or any ideas????

BillS · 09-23-2008, 04:45 PM

you have a frozen caliper slide

futuref-body · 09-23-2008, 07:16 PM

is that the little metal clip? at top and bottom? i just put both of those new since they came with the brakes.

BillS · 09-24-2008, 10:30 AM

no these are the anti-rattle clips, the slides are the greased pins that the caliper bolts onto. they allow the caliper to move and grab the disk evenly. When they freeze then either one side on the caliper does not grab, or after the brake pedal is released one pad stays in contact with the disk, causing wear, heat and smoke. Most of the time the fix is to replace the caliper mounts that include the slides.