At ~20k miles, I needed a front brake job. The inner pad of my passenger side was worn down to metal. The funny thing is that it was only worn down to metal on the rear part of the pad. I took it in to the dealer to have them check the caliper. They told me it was considered normal wear. Now 10k miles later, the exact same thing has happened. This newer set of pads is from Performance Friction. I would have expected at least as many miles as the stockers. More important is the fact that when I pulled the caliper off, I found that the rubber boots around the pistons were "torn." Actually they were almost crispy. Does anyone have any info or advice?

Thanks,
Edward

 

After doing some research, I think I've got bad dust seals. So do the calipers need to be rebuilt or can the dust seals just be replaced?

Thanks,
Edward

 

Edward: I use to have a1991 Camaro Z281LE that I road coursed and drove daily to work. It came from GM with the then current Corvette brakes.

It developed a 'rattle' in the rt. front wheel area. I changed pads often because of the track use. I kept trying to find the rattle and finally replaced the caliper. That fixed it. My point is, is that aluminum calipers can warp and get out of 'shape'. That's where I'd start looking.....................

Dan

 

The uneven waer across the pad is common.

Here is pic from when 3 of us did brake work last year



The pic has a new pad next to the worn pad

The left is worn more than the right

All 3 of us had the same kind of wear

 

I just did my brakes, and mine was worn that way too.

 

Regarding the torn dust seal, can I just replace it? Or do the calipers have to be rebuilt?

 

Here's my guess regarding the pad wear:
Once the pad wears down, the steel backing doesn't spread the load from the pistons evenly, thus the increased wear in the area of the piston. One day of hard braking at Laguna Seca will cause the same, or more. Here's an extreme example:


I've left a couple phone messages and sent an email to one distributor of Hawk pads suggesting that they increase the thickness of the steel plate to distibute the load more evenly, but I doubt that'll happen.
Regarding the seals, if it was me, I'd have the calipers rebuilt. I don't know for sure, but replacements may be less expensive.
Another example:

 

...even my old 99 maxima and my 95 Eclipse GS-T wore out pads in the same way... never perfectly even. figured "that's just the way it goes"...

 

is it just my eyes or is the metal plate warped on that worn pad....that can't help the problem.

 

Yeah, that's exactly what my seals look like. Thanks, Spike.

-Edward