Brake pads rotation

Until you accidentally open the door

SM-N900P ?

 

It could be disconnecting 12 volt is overkill, as long as you're REAL careful about driver's door. I wonder if the car is more likely to detect excess pedal travel? Or would that only happen once the car is "on". In other words, if you push the piston in to accomodate new pads, and tromp the brake pedal multiple times to build up pressure (enter car through passenger side), will that keep the car "in the dark" as to what you've done? Maybe.

Disconnecting the 12 volt is a hassle, and besides the usual post disconnect issues, lost radio presets and so forth, I've noticed the car seems to behave differently for the subsequent drive or two, doing odd rev-up, like it's recalibrating. Which it likely is.

Back to original topic: is it ok to swap outer and inner pads? The shims are different, a bit. The inner pad has a handle, and the handle incorporates the "early warning" bit, IIRC.

 

My opinions, if anybody cares:

a) It takes about 15 seconds to disconnect 12V battery. When working on brakes, just do it.

B) uneven pad wear is indicative of a problem. "Rotating" them is not fixing the cause of said problem, but is simply a bandaid.

I suspect a failing caliper, and/or bad rotor

 

You should post a video of your technique.

-Chap

 

It's quick, and maybe less wear and tear, if you disconnect neg cable at the body end.

 

Well I have never seen, heard or even considered rotating brake pads.

Certainly with modern cars and brake wear warning lights one would have to consider the pin location.

Even going back to repair cars in the 1960's I never encountered a brake pad rotation thought/ idea.

Anything is possible though.
Always good to think outside the box.
FWIW In an emergency, I have heard of using JB weld as a pad material to protect the rotors.

Thanks to OP for the post.

 

Seen it on my old Chevy S10 Blazer. Sure it's the single piston design of the calipers. It's not ideal to rotate pads but certainly maximize life.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Here's my measurements, first time:

Saturday, March 15, 2014
km: 43017
* inspected front and rear brakes, pads disassembled and lubed, calipers pins relubed
remaining thicknesses:
front left outer:7.9
front left inner:7.7
front right outer:7.9
front right inner:7.5
rear left outer:7.7
rear left inner:7.1
rear right outer:7.2
rear right inner:6.4

My take: the inner pads are invariably a bit thinner, typically around 1/2 mm, which is really trivial. If everything is functioning normally, the calipers are near-free floating, the outer vs inner pad wear will be insigificant. Also, I don't see how you can transfer the wear indicator between the two pads. I would leave them as-is, with the wear indicator on the inside pad, serving as the "canary".

 

I stand corrected, both outer and inner pad have the copper handle. And the wear indicator? I musta been thinking Honda.

 

Changed pads for the first time at 184k miles.

Old pad measurements in mm:

front pad new replacement: 9.5
front left outer: 3.9
front left inner: 5.6
front right outer: 3.3
front right inner: 5.8

rear pad new replacement: 9.1
rear left outer: 5.6
rear left inner: 5.2
rear right outer: 5.7
rear right inner: 5.5

Fairly balanced wear except the front outers. Based on this, I'll be increasing the frequency of relubing the front slider pins and only relube the rear pins every other time. I did rebuild the calipers so that should take those of the equation as the root cause going forward.