Hi Folks,

Just brought my baby in for a safety and emissions and guess what? Front brakes are fine but rear brakes are almost non existent. I should have paid more attention because of the dust always on my rear rims. It only has 37,000 miles and I don't brake hard. Also the rear passenger side brake is thinner than the drivers side brake. Does this mean I have to adjust the bias on my master cylinder or is this just the way these things are? I would have expected the results to be the front going out sooner than the rear.

Also The local shop wants $120 for a simple brake job, pads only. No thanks. One post said that to compress the piston you have to >turn< it. I'm not sure what they meant by this. I am hoping I just remove the wheel, unbolt the caliper and hang it so its not putting stress on the brake line, compress the piston with a c clamp and then put in the new pads. Is there a trick or something I'm missing. I'd like to do it tonight and I don't want to miss work tomorrow because of something weird.

Thanks all.

:liebe011: :banana:

This post has been edited by Jasperflash: Aug 3 2008, 07:01 PM

Something is wrong there. The rear brakes in most cars are hardly used compared to the front because the front is what does most of your stopping. I'm sure you already know this. Since your car is an 06 with only 35k I would call the dealer up and see what they say. I don't see how they could not think it was a problem.

((***edit - I noticed some other posts that the rears in Elantras do wear quickly...maybe a design problem??? I know GM had problems for years with undersized brakes on the front of their cars))

The post you read is right. You have to turn the piston instead of compressing because of how the parking brake works in rear disc cars. Do what you described, but turn it instead of compressing. I would not pay a buck twenty for that type of job. You may have 30 bucks tied up in pads. Before I opened my wallet, I would call the stealership first.

Let me ask you this, how do your rotors look? Are the pretty worn too?

Some of the experts can correct me here, but I don't think there is any adjustment on the m/c. Mine is a GLS w/drums so I can't go out and look.

At this point I would lean toward a parking brake issue causing the rear to wear like they are.

This post has been edited by hatda02: Aug 5 2008, 12:19 PM

However, on the Elantra this is not uncommon. Precisely because front brakes usually wear out before rears, Hyundai tried to balance this out and biased the proportioning more toward the rear... and went a little too far. On many Elantras, the rear brakes wear out first, or at the same time as the fronts.

There are some threads around here about changing the rear brake pads- a pretty easy job but you don't just compress the pistons in with a C-clamp, you "screw" them in. You can buy a little tool for less than $10 that makes it much easier.

I had to change mine at about 38,000 miles. The biggest part of the job was jacking up the car. After that it was very simple.

Click here for instructions.

A couple other things that may help:

When you remove the pads, the piston will look like this:

(IMG:http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e341/Doohickie/Picture029-4.jpg)

Use the tool and a socket wrench to "screw" the piston in (rotating clockwise just like tightening a bolt). Just figure out which face fits the indentations best:

(IMG:http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e341/Doohickie/Picture031-5.jpg)

If the new pads don't have the metal shims on them, remove them from the old pads and re-use them:

(IMG:http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e341/Doohickie/Picture036-5.jpg)

(IMG:http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e341/Doohickie/Picture037-5.jpg)

If you find that the pads do not slide freely, you may want to file down the alignment ears just a little:

(IMG:http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e341/Doohickie/Picture034-4.jpg)

This post has been edited by Doohickie: Aug 6 2008, 08:59 PM