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Sorry if this is in the wrong section of the forum, I wasn’t sure if it belonged here or not.
In mid January, the front left caliper on my brother’s 1993 Cadillac Deville seized. There was also a brake pulsation that had been there for some time.
The car was brought to a small local shop with a flawless reputation(I couldn’t find a bad word about them on the internet.) and over $800 was paid to replace both front calipers,rotors, pads, brake hoses and the rear drums/shoes. Today I noticed that the front left caliper is far, far, far less rusty than the right. Does that mean they simply didn’t replace the right caliper?
Also, when looking at the rear drums, they simply look too rusty to be less than 2 months old.
Pictures of what I saw are attached.
What do you guys think about this? Any opinions on how to proceed?
Front Right Caliper:
Front Left Caliper:
Rear Brake Drum:
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Actually they look fine.
The reason one is showing more signs of rust may be due to the fact it had less rust inhibitor applied to it when it was manufactured.
I replaced my Calipers just before winter and they look like thisSo I do not believe you were ripped off
I know that rust on the calipers is okay, I’m concerned about the difference in rust between the two. Why would more or less rust inhibitor be put on at the factory? They should be the same manufacturer/model caliper, made in the same factory.
The price.you paid is not uncommon for that repair, but it’s a bit at the high end of the scale.
Brakes are important, so you recognized that and did research, so kudos to you for making the good effort.
Brake rotors, are bare metal. when they are made, they don’t want them to rust while sitting on the shelf waiting to be sold. That’s why they spray them with a rust inhibitor called cosmiline. Before a new rotor is installed, the technician cleans that off. If they leftnit on, it would greatly diminish the, stopping force of your brakes.
Brakes are designed to work on principals of friction. The caliper squeezes the pads together in order to press against both sides of the rotor, this slows your roll.
The caliper is mounted using two guide pins, or guide bolts as some folks call them. These guide pins have a special high temp lube that is held in with some small rubber covers. Over time, the lube for the guide pins does go away. When that lube is gone, the caliper can’t squeeze correctly on both sides of the rotor.
If someone always has a foot on the brake pedal, like an elderly person, the brakes get hot and stay hot and this eventually warps the brake rotor. A warp in a rotor is usually impossible to see with the naked eye, but in essence what was once a flat disc is now very slightly shaped like a Pringle chip. That means that the brake pedal will have a constant pulsation like you mentioned. It’s usually recommend to just replace the rotor at that point.
Keep in mind that even brand new rotors will rust. If the rust is less on one side by a wide amount than the other side, there is a slight chance that the cosmoline coating may still be partially on it, or the guide pins for the caliper were not lubed correctly on both sides, or the brake fluid could be getting old. It is also very likely that one side was closer to a moisture source overnight and simply got a little more rust because of that.
I will say that if you want top performance from your brakes, you should consider getting a brake fluid flush. The fluid gets old and over time will not make the caliper squeeze as hard as it should. Most shops charge $45-$90 for that. I suggest doing that every 2-3 years. I’ve seen people spend over $1300 for all new brakes front and rear, but the brake pedal would still hit the floor. I’ve seen those folks have me do a brake fluid flush only and the brakes performed amazingly well, like a brand new car. Can you see that I like brake fluid flushed?
Ok, to recap. I think your fine with the asymmetrical rotor rust. As far as what you were charged, it’s within range too. A little high, but given that they are known for doing good work I’m not surprised that they are a little high on price.
Look into a brake fluid flush sometime soon, you will be happy you did.If the car pulls hard to one side over the other while braking all the time, then you should go back to the shop and ask them to make certain the caliper guide pins have been properly lubricated.
I know that rust on the calipers is okay, I’m concerned about the difference in rust between the two. Why would more or less rust inhibitor be put on at the factory? They should be the same manufacturer/model caliper, made in the same factory.
Perhaps the tech got some brake clean over spray on the one caliper when cleaning the rotor.
Maybe he got his finger prints all over it from installation and cleaned them off.
In any case I don’t see any issue.In general, when giving an order to replace parts of the car, then at least let them show you (if not to keep) the old parts they took out, and compare them to the new parts/to each other, maybe even mark the parts somehow before bringing the car in to the shop. I know it’s too late for that advice in this case now, but that’s how I’ve been doing it, and it is generally a good practice that helps you avoid fraud (without saying whether this case was fraud or not).
With the information and pictures given, I would not want to be accusational toward the shop. You are correct in noticing the difference between the calipers, but there could be several explanations. Maybe one of the calipers had been sold, unwrapped by the customer and determined to be an incorrect part, returned to the store and sat on the shelf out of the wrapper and got damp. Maybe one of them got wet for some reason outside of the packaging before being installed.
You are correct to examine such things, but I have learned that dealing with people you don’t know, you must trust them until they prove that they are not trustworthy. This doesn’t mean that you don’t keep an eye on someone you are dealing with and has not yet earned your trust, but you can’t be making unfounded accusations either. A popular president once said “You have to trust everyone, but ALWAYS cut the deck.”
If the brakes are working well and you can find no other evidence of anything wrong, I think the right thing to do is to drop it and get more experience with the shop as time goes along.
My $0.02.
Not sure where you are located, but road salt will make steel parts look ugly in a hurry – for the calipers, they likely used remanufactured/rebuilt units, and it could have been that they were from two different suppliers with different corrosion mitigation treatments applied to them… the important thing is whether or not they are working properly.
For appearance issues like this, the time to catch it would have been right after the job was done – otherwise there’s no way to prove if they started the same, or one was rusty when it went on. It may be that they rebuild calipers themselves (replace the cylinders and seals, hone the bores if there is any corrosion ,etc.) and leave the external surfaces alone. Just remember that the outer surface of the caliper and the drums are not functional surfaces – they can be ugly, and it doesn’t impact performance in any way.
The difference in rust could also be due to the calipers being provided by different suppliers. This can happen even if both calipers are purchased from the same parts house. One could be Brand A and the other Brand B.
Another possibility is that the two calipers could have come out of different production runs with variations in metallurgy or rust preventative coating.
If the car is in the Rust Belt things can rust badly very quickly.
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