I'd be grateful for any sage advice on a long standing brake puzzler.
I can barely recall the last time I was happy with my brakes on this frigin vehicle. :-) My 140k mile 01 Outback has warped its rotors again, and has had lousy braking performance since about a month after the latest top-of-line third party pads and new top quality third party rotor went on it (done by a non-Sube tech)...oh, probably just
25k miles ago. The brakes since the most recent set of top of the line pads have felt soft to me, and stopping performance seems lousy. Pedal travel seems to be a bit more than it should as well, though the techs did bleed the brake system, and on a return trip insist that a hydraulic issue isn't at play and that those particulra pads are just a bit soft in feeling. I'm a family guy with an anemic engine'd vehicle, drive with one foot, and decelerate slowly and smoothly, so aggressive driving certainly can't be the issue. :-) My brake rotors don't look shiny on the front for what it's worth--they look more black.Q1: is this blackness of the rotors indicative of an overtemp condition at some point in the past?
Q2: if so, what could be causing that? Tab of non-OEM brake pad a bit too large causing it to hang up? Or could there be an issue with booster or master cylinder at play? How do they test for booster or master cylinder issues?
Q3: is it true that if a pad overheats, it chemically changes and will never stop the same ever again? Most recently a tech who looked at the issue mentioned this and shook off any of my questions about possible master cylinder or booster problems.
Q4: on pad replacement, aside from going OEM with pad and rotor (which I'm going to do this time), I'd like to know what are the best practices to doing the brake job.
I plan to do this one myself again--since the pros I left it to the last 2 times it'd been in didn't seem to do any better, and want to leverage the savings of subarugenuineparts.com--and am interested in what goodies are best to clean up the calipers, caliper slides, and that and what sort of lubricant should be used on the slides (does Subaru sell a kit for such?).
Also, looking in the OEM catalog--anyone know what the front brake backing plate is that sells for about $15 each? Is that the backing plate for the pads?
Thanks for any insight or time in hanging with an overlong question. :-)
-- Todd H.
2001 Legacy Outback Wagon, 2.5L H-4 Chicago, Illinois USA