Well, its finally happened... Its time to get the brakes done on my 08 FEH. Starting late last week i've been hearing a nice grinding sound from the rear brakes.

I'm assuming at least one person here has done their own pads and/or rotors. Any issues or gotchas? I'd like to do them myself to save a bit of coin but if its too much of a hassle, i'm going to start calling around for quotes.

 

Just wondering how many miles are on the rear brakes? Did the rears wear out more quickly than the fronts?

 

162,000km on them and yes, it looks like the rears wore out faster.

 

Got it, thanks. That's pretty impressive mileage for a set of brakes.

There should be DIY brake job info here if you search around. All I can recall is something about having to ensure that the brake system didn't pressurize during the brake job. Maybe someone will chime in with complete info.

 

Napa is going to do the brakes for me. $970 for new pads and rotors. The stealerships want $1200, speedy brakes won't touch them, Fountain Tire, Kaltire, all $1100.

UUGGGG!!!! At least its getting taken care of and i'll be good for another 160,000 km

 

Does NAPA realize they will be unable to properly bleed the brake system?

 

I do the pads on my hybrid. The setting to serve the brakes is in the manual. It's something like 3 turns of the key and the service mode comes on. You do NOT want the system on while changing pads as you can get caught with the system charging during install. Costs me about 50 bucks for the pads.
I've bled the system the old fashion way. No pumping needed. Just be careful not to discharge too much before the brake system cycles and replace properly. Might take you a few weekends to bleed the whole thing as I got bored waiting to cycle.

 

$968.33, that's the final number. Napa Autopro did a good job, had it back to me in 4 hours and no issues with the brakes so far. They simply disabled the traction battery and disconnected the 12v under the hood which i'm OK with. Fuel economy has taken a bit of a hit since it has to relearn all the settings but its almost back to normal. Averaging 8l/100km right now which is about on target since the weather is getting warmer again.

 

That's interesting, the first time I've heard brake rotors needing to be replaced other than rusting from non-use. Mine have over 170,000km on them and they're fine, only the pads needed to be replaced.

 

I had metal on metal and no one would machine the rotors because of it.