2002 Explorer Front Brakes

Don,

The replacement of front brake pads at 37,000 miles is not uncommon and thankfully a rather straightforward process. Did we understand correctly that you also plan to *replace the rotors*?

Brian Humphrey snipped-for-privacy@prodigy.net

Is there some reason you want to replace the rotors? If it's stopping good without pulsation and they look OK I'd just change the pads.

Unrelated to your question...

My 02 Explorer is almost at 36,000 miles and so far, brakes are working just great. Perhaps I'm easier on them than you? :-) who knows, but now I will be extra careful.

I'm still curious, is there an actual problem with how the truck brakes? Are the pads worn down to the point that "it's time"? I'm not trying to talk you out of what you want to do, just curious.

The kind of stop-and-go driving I did on my '99 (before I had my '02), especially in cold weather with road salt, caused its rotors to warp after only 25,000 miles.

But changing rotors and pads together takes about half an hour. It's really pretty easy.

It's the "if they look OK" that worries me.... we need to remember minimum thickness as well as runout, parallelism and surface condition. Pad slaps are OK to a point, but for a truly great brake job, replacing rotors or machining to a non-directional finish is the icing on the cake. The current crop of offshore rotors (I realize that will stick in the throats of some patriots) is proving to be both economical and of good quality.

We can try to start our cars as many times as we want, Santa comes once a year but we only get one chance to stop....

Have a very merry and very safe Xmas... one and all.

Jim Warman snipped-for-privacy@telusplanet.net