Brake Job in the Rust Belt

John Welsh said:

Would you believe that while writing this from my desk I get a call from my wife.  She is out with the Mazda.  She is at her mom's (3 miles away.)  She reports that the driver's front wheel is making sounds while driving (not so much while braking) and that the steering wheel vibrates while driving.  

I just went and dropped her off the Prius and drove home the Mazda.  I suspect the caliper is sticking.  I always thought that but did not have a caliper and wanted the car out of my MIL's driveway where I did all this brake work.  

Later (not today) I'll dig back into the Mazda.   

The ongoing saga.  When we last left this story, the wife was reporting a shaking steering wheel which I confirmed when I picked up the car from her.  

It was not until Sunday night that I looked at the Mazda again.  It just so happened that my wife and I were sitting in these chairs in the driveway while the kids played.  The 18 month old (who stands just about as high as the front tire) happened to be over at the Mazda.  My wife was in the chair closest to the car.  She then said, "he just turned one of the lug nuts."  Sure enough, he had.  I gave her the odd answer of genuine (not sarcastic), "Great!"  This lead me to believe loose lugnuts could be my problem.  

Sure enough, on the driver's side (side 1 of the brake job) I could loosen all the lug nuts by hand.  

I know for sure that the day I did that side lug nuts that I torqued them down by hand.  I am certain of this.  I think what had happened was that it all was victim of a double error.  

• Error one: store your torque wrench with the torque setting reduced to 0 or what I'll call the storing state.  I am guessing that rather than getting the wrench all the way down to 0, it was probably near 0 but more like 15lbs
• Error two: The night of finishing side 1 and reaching for the tq wrench I probably did not check the tq but the wrench clicked.  What I did not realize was that it clicked at 15 lb. Had it been zero it would have not clicked at all.   

Not a valid excuse but I was frustrated, fatigued and tired when I should have been paying attention to the tq.

I test drove the car that night and all seemed fine (on that short drive.)

The next day, my wife ran errands with the Mazda and it was near the end of that trip that the lugs had loosened enough to create the vibration in the steering wheel.  A proper tq'ing and a test drive cycle leads me to believe that all is okay...for now.  

Still need to consider if the front caliper is binding.  It does not seem to be doing it now.  I'll continue to evaluate.  

At least she didn’t drop a wheel and drive into the ditch after you told her she would probably be fine to drive half a mile to a gas station.  

I did that to my wife once. She said there was a “noise”, both front wheels lugs were loose.   Stupid mistake and I now test drive after working on the cars.  

A super easy and super successful brake job now done to the '07 Prius.  More miles and more years on the Prius vs the Mazda5 but the Prius job was ultra easy.  

Apparently, at 135,500 miles on the Prius, I got all I could out of the 12 year old front pads

passenger side:

driver side:

Good, even wear and none of the challenges like the Mazda job. 

For stuck rotors I use bolts in the caliper brackets. The bolt head goes against the rotor. A nut and washer push against the bracket forcing the rotor off. Loosen the nut and turn the rotor to keep it from cocking.

You can also use the steering to push them off. Jam a extension or piece of hardwood against the rotor and some solid metal and turn the wheel  to force the rotor off. This works well on trucks.

I lived in Cleveland for 4 years.  I hope to never go back.

A little lube periodically would’ve prevented all of that. Lube on the slides would’ve prevented the uneven pad wear and lube on the hub would’ve made the rotor fall right off. An ounce of prevention is worth a couple hours of struggling with hammers and pullers.