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Car Forum / Chevrolet / Chevrolet Trucks / February 2005Uneven brake wear - common?
2002 Silverado 1500, 1/2 ton, extended cab 4 door, 4.8 V8, 4X4, 4 wheel disks. Contrary to many posts here and at GMC forum I've been happy with pedal feel and impressive stopping power. Not happy replacing right rear pads 3 to 1 over the rest of the brakes. Went over all aspects of caliper for sticking (inside and outside pads wear the same - fast), greased pins, etc. Brother-in-laws 2001 Z71 has same problem, neighbor's 2002 Z71 same problem, and when I went to Auto Zone for rear pads the counter guy said, "right rear go bad?" Also eats rotors quicker than other 3 corners. Seems to be a common enough problem, at least in my circle. Anybody else with similar experience? Since all the pieces seem to be properly functioning leads me to believe design flaw. Thoughts? Jay Yes, I've heard of it too. I just yesterday traded in my 2000 Z71. I didn't have the problem. I don't know if it's driving style or some tiny variation is tolerances of parts that creates the problem. Whatever it is, It really is weird. My truck had 80,000 miles. I had pulled all four wheels at about 72,000 to check the brakes. Wear seemed to be even and very light. I was starting to think that the brakes would outlive the truck. Unfortunatley I will never know. I traded it in for a 2001 Suburban yesterday :( My family is growing :) BTW, does anybody know if it happens to Suburbans too. If so, I will have to keep an eye out for it on my new vehicle. > 2002 Silverado 1500, 1/2 ton, extended cab 4 door, 4.8 V8, 4X4, 4 > wheel disks. Contrary to many posts here and at GMC forum I've been [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > experience? Since all the pieces seem to be properly functioning > leads me to believe design flaw. Thoughts? Actually, I see mainly the right rear "inner" pad wearing out prematurely. This is mainly on the light duty rear disc brakes that you find on the 1/2 ton trucks. As soon as you go to the heavier rear disc brakes, the problem is not as common. It's so common now that I simply put it down to one of two things....it's normal (lousy design) or for some reason the right rear is more prone to get dirt and rocks thrown up into the caliper and jam something up. We recommend and install caliper shields for the rear, and have found that they work quite well especially for the customers that get into a lot of mud and dirt while driving. It's an absolute must for seismic trucks...in fact...we also install special mud flaps that sit forward of the rear wheels inside the fender wells. GM will often spring for the rear brake job if the customer installs the mud guards and caliper shields. Other vehicles exhibit some similar traits...the N-body cars (Malibu for instance) wear out the inner brake pads (both sides evenly) about 4 times as fast as the outer brake pads. There is nothing wrong that you will find with the callipers/slides/etc. But we often get cars that have been to independent shops, coming back into our shop trying to get warranty for "seized" callipers. We don't honour this. Mind you, GM has basically started to provide warranty on any premature brake wear under 60k kilometres. Ian Ian, I would almost bet it is due to more dirt. That side would be running near the shoulder and curbs more often so more dirt probably gets thrown there. Kind of like snowbelt vehicles rusting out more on the drivers side because of the salt spray from passing vehicles.  SignatureSteve Williams > > 2002 Silverado 1500, 1/2 ton, extended cab 4 door, 4.8 V8, 4X4, 4 > > wheel disks. Contrary to many posts here and at GMC forum I've been [quoted text clipped - 39 lines] > > Ian Steve.....snowbelt vehicles do have drivers side rust, but some have rust issues in the rear end, due to the tires kicking the salt up too J True. But if you look at the drivers side you will see that the door bottoms,front fenders and frame usually show more rust than the pass. side. SignatureSteve Williams Near Cooperstown, New York > Steve.....snowbelt vehicles do have drivers side rust, but some have rust > issues in the rear end, due to the tires kicking the salt up too > > J I have a 2001 Suburban with 43k miles and we just had the rear brakes crap out - same M.O. as noted above - right rear rotor (inner, especially) scored badly after maybe 25 miles from the first sound or indication of a problem. This seems EXTREMELY low mileage for rear brakes of ANY vehicle to be gone. Service writer at local rip-off oriented Chevy dealer on NW side of Indy is saying this is a common problem for these Suburbans (done in response to previous extreme wear problems on the prior year FRONT brakes, thus the newly designed GM proportioning valve that moves primary braking responsibilit to the rear... This seems totally wrong, based on all of my engineering background and race track experience and I think they are just licking their chops at my wallet and this is a design problem that should be covered in some way (either the extended warranty or GM owning up to premature emasculation of the pads!!!). Any thoughts or other expereince as to 2001 Suburban rear brake wear? Any technical info about the 'braking bias', front-to-rear on this vehicle? > I have a 2001 Suburban with 43k miles and we just had the rear brakes > crap out - same M.O. as noted above - right rear rotor (inner, > especially) scored badly after maybe 25 miles from the first sound or > indication of a problem. This seems EXTREMELY low mileage for rear > brakes of ANY vehicle to be gone. Wow, you are lucky....that's fairly high mileage for the rear brakes on these vehicles. I'm seeing them wear out well before that. Usually, vehicles that are used in high dirt/mud situations are more affected. Vehicles that just run around town (yuppiemobiles) don't seem to have the problem. We advise folks that are running into problems to install caliper shields that help prevent crap getting into the calipers. If there is any "design" problem, it's the location of the caliper at the front side of the rotor. I think it would have made more sense if they were at the rear of the rotor. There is also almost no clearance between the rim and the caliper which can cause problems. I've seen vehicles that came in with a rock jammed between the caliper and rim which wore a groove right through the rim. > Service writer at local rip-off oriented Chevy dealer on NW side of > Indy is saying this is a common problem for these Suburbans (done in > response to previous extreme wear problems on the prior year FRONT > brakes, thus the newly designed GM proportioning valve that moves > primary braking responsibilit to the rear... This seems totally > wrong, I think that's just some line that the service writer is feeding you. I know that at our dealership, what the service advisor says and what reality is, is often at two different ends of the spectrum. I hate that say that, but it's true. I'm not sure why they think that "truth" will be too hard for the customer to handle, but I suspect that there is a lot of "butt covering" going on.....you can't be working at the dealership for long and be slamming your own product. Or I should say, you won't be working there long if you do that. > Any thoughts or other expereince as to 2001 Suburban rear brake wear? > Any technical info about the 'braking bias', front-to-rear on this > vehicle? I think that they have made an improvement in the brake bias so that both ends are working and wearing at a reasonable rate. But I don't have any actual info on that. Overall, the brake wear on the new trucks is 10 times better then the old. I put the rear brake problems down more to where the caliper is located then to any inherent brake design problem. When you have calipers hanging out in the way of all the dirt and moisture, things start to happen. Even the front brakes, (which don't wear out at all), have problems with corrosion and seizing of the brake pads on the slider section of the brake knuckle. Then you get problems like the inner pads on the front no longer are applied to the rotor and the inner surfaces start to rust badly. Ian I have a 2001 Suburban with 43k miles and we just had the rear brakes crap out - same M.O. as noted above - right rear rotor (inner, especially) scored badly after maybe 25 miles from the first sound or indication of a problem. This seems EXTREMELY low mileage for rear brakes of ANY vehicle to be gone. Service writer at local rip-off oriented Chevy dealer on NW side of Indy is saying this is a common problem for these Suburbans (done in response to previous extreme wear problems on the prior year FRONT brakes, thus the newly designed GM proportioning valve that moves primary braking responsibilit to the rear... This seems totally wrong, based on all of my engineering background and race track experience and I think they are just licking their chops at my wallet and this is a design problem that should be covered in some way (either the extended warranty or GM owning up to premature emasculation of the pads!!!). Any thoughts or other expereince as to 2001 Suburban rear brake wear? Any technical info about the 'braking bias', front-to-rear on this vehicle? |
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