Who does their own brakes?

[Zap]

And how difficult/involved is it?

My Mazdaspeed 6 will be needing new pads/rotors this upcoming year. I have around 78k miles on this set of brakes, and the shop said the pads are down to 20%. Rotors are a bit grooved/scoured/warped (prob the crap that Wisconsin Winters do to roads) and car is pulsing/shimmying a bit under braking.

I was quoted around the low $900 range for rotors/brakes/labor for all 4 corners, using OEM MS6 parts.

I see internet pricing of around $500 for the same OEM parts. I have some basic hand tools and do my own tire rotations, but I would probably need to purchase jackstands and maybe some other tools.

How involved is it? Is it just a matter of unbolting/bolting in parts and doing some adjustments?

 

[halik]

No adjustment needed, at most an hour per corner. Jack the car up, take the wheel off, break the caliper bolts lose, slide caliper off, pull the rotor. In the caliper, there's usually metal retaining pins that hold the pads in; yank those and the pads will fall out.

 

[Midwayman]

Brakes are easy. Get a brake spreader from the auto parts store to push the pistons back in. Brake grease for the back of the pads. Use zip ties to hang the calibers from the springs while you are working on the rotors. Double check the lines for kinks when you put the calipers back on- its easy to twist them and not notice. Pump the brakes a few times before moving the car, you get no brakes on the first press or two.

 

[skyking]

Pro tip: If your car has rotor retaining screws, apply a liberal dose of your favorite penetrating oil as far in advance as possible. That road salt will wreak havoc on those small threads.
If you intend to use them again, invest in some copper anti seize compound. They are there for ease of assembly, keeping the rotor centered on the lugs and tight to the hub flange. they do not add any strength to the assembly itself.
I recently did all of our cars, and I had to torch one of those little bastiges out after all other methods failed.

 

[jaedaliu]

That break spreader may be a borrowable item from your local kragen/oriely auto parts. A c-clamp also can work.

Yes, you want jack stands. Probably a torque wrench if you don't have one already. And rockauto is a great internet dealer for their prices.

First time I did my own brakes I borrowed my friends' tools, driveway, and watchful eyes. Cost me lunch. Pretty cheap for peace of mind.

 

[JCH13]

Brakes aren't hard at all, but you should be very careful to not screw up

Basic hand tools, brake cleaner, jack, jack-stands, TORQUE WRENCH, anti-seize, Torx if your brakes require it, a brake retractor tool for the rear calipers and a retractor or c-clamp for the fronts.

Retractor tools can be borrowed from many auto-parts stores, or, amazon has kits for not a whole lot of money.

Consider doing a brake fluid flush at the same time since you'll have all the wheels off and be fuzting with the brakes anyway.

Pro tip: If your car has rotor retaining screws, apply a liberal dose of your favorite penetrating oil as far in advance as possible. That road salt will wreak havoc on those small threads.
If you intend to use them again, invest in some copper anti seize compound. They are there for ease of assembly, keeping the rotor centered on the lugs and tight to the hub flange. they do not add any strength to the assembly itself.
I recently did all of our cars, and I had to torch one of those little bastiges out after all other methods failed.

I've had good luck with impact phillips bits in a cordless impact gun. The one time that didn't work I used the extractor bolts to put serious tension on the retaining screw and then it came loose. I cracked the rotor doing so, but I knew I was throwing it away. I never reinstall them and have not had any issues getting everything back together on several cars.

 

[skyking]

I had all the tools and still totally destroyed/broke off the head of the screw. I torched it out without any problems, threads are still good but not screw went back in there either.

 

[Ketchup]

Are all 4 pretty rough or just the fronts? We did the fronts on our 6 already, but the rears are just now showing they are ready for replacement (over 100k miles).

 

[Dr. Detroit]

Buy the parts from Rock Auto - I would buy Akebono pads if they make them for your car.

Take the parts (rotors, pads) to a independent shop and have them done. Should cost you $150 - $200 tops for labor.

No sense in getting OEM parts, but don't cheap out and buy crappy rotors.

Buying tools and possibly breaking something is not worth the $200 in labor it will cost you.

 

[jlee]

Buy the parts from Rock Auto - I would buy Akebono pads if they make them for your car.

Take the parts (rotors, pads) to a independent shop and have them done. Should cost you $150 - $200 tops for labor.

No sense in getting OEM parts, but don't cheap out and buy crappy rotors.

Buying tools and possibly breaking something is not worth the $200 in labor it will cost you.

$40 in tools and a few hours...you must make way more than me.

 

[cardiac]

Good suggestion on aftermarket pads. Hawk also makes some great pads. There are better alternatives to OEM. Is there a good Mazda forum you can search? You can do this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhK6Mvc7A8A

 

[manimal]

hawk performance ceramics are great on your car.


ebc ultimax or w/e their called are 50 bucks ish.

 

[skyking]

Are all 4 pretty rough or just the fronts? We did the fronts on our 6 already, but the rears are just now showing they are ready for replacement (over 100k miles).

My car was like that, but our Pilot was designed so they all go at the same time.

 

[roguerower]

I did both of my front tires (new rotors/calipers/pads) in 2 hours on Saturday. I had help, but it was pretty straight forward.

 

[Dr. Detroit]

$40 in tools and a few hours...you must make way more than me.

I do but thats not the point -

It's pretty easy to rip a seal, shear/strip a bolt, or have other complications. As he is doing front and rear rotors & pads and he is not a regular weekend shade tree mechanic spending the extra $100 over the cost of the tool to have a full set done is not that pad.

Plus no busted knuckles.

 

[michal1980]

I would do it with disk brakes.

I'm done drum's before and never again.

I'd also pay for brake fluid change out. IMHO far more can go wrong doing that, plus if you do it alone, its a f-ing pain in the ass.

 

[Fenixgoon]

changing pads is super easy. haven't needed to change rotors.

 

[Rifter]

Took me about 30 min total for both sides on the front of my integra last weekend, replaced front rotors and pads and greased the caliper sliders. Most time consuming part was removing and re tourqing the wheels and jacking up the car, once the wheel is off it shouldnt take you more than 5-10 min to swap the actual parts per corner.

Would rate this as a 2/10 on the difficulty scale

 

[cbrsurfr]

Pads are easy. The rotors are what can be a pain. I had one where I couldn't get the torx bit out so I had to drill it. My car you also have to remove the caliper retainers which can be difficult if they've never been touched before.

Now I'm a pro. I can do pads on all 4 corners in 45 min if the car's already in the air. I'll never pay for a brake job again.

 

[wirednuts]

i had a guy ask me if i could put his pads on, and i said i would do it for $50. he said "i just need the pads put on, i have them i just dont have the tools to do it".

i said "well i can do it for $40 then". he said he didnt think it was going to be that much so he was going to look elsewhere.

not really sure what he was thinking. his pads were grinding too, so it wouldnt even fix his problem really but i didnt even get to that point because he obviously didnt even have $40. he kinda made me feel like i was ripping him off... not sure about that...

 

[tweakmonkey]

Brake jobs are super easy compared to most car maintenance and you'll save so much money over the span of your lifetime learning how to fix stuff like this.

Best advice I can give as someone that works on cars for a living:
Buy disposable latex (diamond grip) or nitrile gloves. You'll be a lot happier doing this if you're not all banged up and disgusting afterward.

Don't work on a hill, rough outside street or an otherwise cold/dark/crappy surface. It's hard if you don't have your own garage or shop but any effort you can make to move and see easily and not run into those problems will make your life a lot easier. If lighting is a major problem (I'd say it's worth starting early, don't mess with it after sunset) bring a headlamp like a Petzl hiking light so your hands will be free.

Buy a lifetime warranty 100+ pc craftsman socket set and you'll be amazed how many times you'll use it if you're at all a DIY person.

Ask a car enthusiast friend/buddy to help out.

 

[jlee]

I do but thats not the point -

It's pretty easy to rip a seal, shear/strip a bolt, or have other complications. As he is doing front and rear rotors & pads and he is not a regular weekend shade tree mechanic spending the extra $100 over the cost of the tool to have a full set done is not that pad.

Plus no busted knuckles.

Any reasonably intelligent person can learn how to do brakes. They're easier than spark plugs on a Subaru, that's for sure...

If your car is rusty and you don't think it'll come apart, then feel free to pay someone. I stopped doing that when I had an axle nut that wouldn't come off (broke two 1/2" drive breaker bars) so I went down to a shop...asked them what they'd do if I brought it down there, and they said they'd do the same thing as me. Big pipe.

So, I bought a 3/4" breaker bar, put an 8ft pipe on it, and broke it free. Mechanics aren't miracle workers - stuff will break for them too, and then they'll just bill you $90/hr for it.

Maybe for you it's worth it, though. Also, if it's your only car, I could understand the concern. I have spares.

Zap - check this out: http://forum.mazda6club.com/engine-...4563-diy-mazdaspeed6-replace-pads-rotors.html

 

[punjabiplaya]

I've done em (pads and rotors) on a couple of speed3s. Bring me some beer and I'll help you out.

 

[natto fire]

First work I ever did on a car was brakes on my '84 Cressida. Discs on all 4 wheels was a bit of a rarity on that vintage, but great to learn on when I finally did do some drums. Best part about learning brakes is to do one at a time, if you get messed up, you have a mirror of what it's supposed to look like on the other side. Be generous with anti-seize, and the rest falls into place. Disc brakes are self adjusting, so as long as your calipers are in good shape, it is a very straightforward process.

The only thing that can throw you is how they do the parking brake, and even then you could just say screw it for the rears until reading more into it or taking to a shop.

Not sure what your tool situation is, but to counter Fmr12b's post, you don't really need any special tools except maybe a $10 universal caliper tool for parking brakes, and a $4 C clamp to compress the piston. Other than that, it takes very basic tools.

It is a dirty job, and requires more muscle than putting together a computer, but is definitely not any more complex.

 

[BUTCH1]

I just did all 4 on mine (Chevy) last week, went with advance ceramic pads, if yor car has the parking brake as part of the rear caliper assembly you might need a tool ( I used needle-nosed pliers) to "screw" the pistons back down into the bore to gain clearance to install the new pads. Since I alyaws want fresh fluid in my system i have my own method, first go to a medical supply store and buy one of these

the some clean clear tubing that fits the end of the syringe and the bleeder nipple. First thing is remove all the fluid from the master cylinder Reservoir, fill with fresh DOT 3, go to the wheel furthest from the master cylinder, (usually right rear), place the tubing on the nipple end, crack the nipple and start sucking until clean, clear fluid comes out, close the nipple in between the sucking, it will take 3-4 sucks to get it nice, (check the fluid in the master cylinder while doing this, DO NOT let it go dry)then go ahead and compress the piston and replace the pads. Why all this fuss? if you compress a caliper piston with old crappy fluid in in your pushing it up to the ABS, bad idea, get brake grease for the back of the pads and a couple of cans of brake cleaner (Always use safety goggles with brake cleaner, it comes out with a good amount of pressure and if it blast's into your eyes, ouch!) repeat for all four sides and you will be left with a happy brake system filled with new fluid and all new pads. You will need a torque wrench to finish the job I got a decent one at Harbor freight for around $20..