t_mak@mail.plymouth.edu

In the 18 months that I owned my car, I have never had any major problem. There is one problem that keeps happening and it haunts me everytime. It all started last May when my left front caliper froze. At that time I was lucky, I had new brake pads anyway. I put it in and got a free caliper off a GXL parts car that my friend had in the garage. For the first 5 months, the brakes worked fine. I guess during that time all the autoxes I was doing were killing hte brakes, before the pads wore out. My rotors were so warped that I could barely drive it over 70mph (it will vibrate when i drive over 70mph). but I kept running it because I was jobless at the time, I needed to squeeze every mile i can get from the car. My dream shattered when my RIGHT front caliper froze. It was frozen so hard that my 5 month old brake pad almost got wore down to the metal. To make a long story short, I replaced that at a shop. They put in these new rotors for me, but guess what. They screwed up and left a spacer out of the front caliper. So everytime I make left turn, the bolt would scrap the rotor. By the time I discover the problem, I already had a nice groove on my rotor. There goes my 5 day old brake pad and rotor.....

After driving my car for a few months, last month the brakes started acting up again. Sometimes I would hear brake dragging noise from the front side. I left that alone for a while until those squeeky noises drove my wild. I took off the wheel yesterday and disocver my right side upper piston doesnt retract all the way!. So that made a nice fnny curve on my 7 months old pads. I sprayed some WD-40 on it, hopefully i can cure the problem for a few weeks. I will change it (the left side caliper)in a week or 2 when I receive the brand new HPS+ and OEM pads. In 18 months, I went through 3 caliper and 3 set of brake pads. Not that the brake pads were worn out, most of them still have more than 70% meat on it, it just the stupid caliper ruined them all!!! I lost like 400 bucks here, ouch......

But after having so many brake problem, I did learn a few things

1. Changing your brake is easy, do the fronts yourself. If I can do it, you can do it too

2. Watch how mechanics do your car if you let them do it

3. Advance Auto Part sel the rebuild front caliper for 35 dollars each

4. New brake pads cost 30-50 bucks from Mazda Comp, dealer=70-100

5. OEM pads dont squeek!!!!