Pad inspection

[LarryAsher]

Is there and easy way to tell how much front pad is left on 06 other than waiting till it hits the scraper or taking the brakes apart ??

[StormTrooper03]

Yea. You can remove the tires and rear drums, if applicable, and inspect them yourself.

Or you can take your van to a brake shop and they can do an inspection for you. Some even let you go in back once the tech inspects your van and point out problem areas.

If you do the second suggestion, get two estimates.

[XDGT03]

Or you can take your van to a brake shop and they can do an inspection for you.

And you will walk out with a $600 estimate to fix your perfectly fine brakes. Here is the deal, you need to start with this as your premise

All brake shops are thieves and liars. They will only rip you off. BEWARE!!!

If you start with that then you can protect yourself at least a little.

IMO, do the brakes yourself. You can replace all the parts with new parts for half the cost a brake shop will charge you for less.

[Phoenixtsintsin]

And you will walk out with a $600 estimate to fix your perfectly fine brakes. Here is the deal, you need to start with this as your premise

All brake shops are thieves and liars. They will only rip you off. BEWARE!!!

If you start with that then you can protect yourself at least a little.

IMO, do the brakes yourself. You can replace all the parts with new parts for half the cost a brake shop will charge you for less.

I won't disagree with the statement that the shops are crooks. But a trusted mechanic is worth his weight in gold. If you know of a trusted shop, do your best to patronize them as much as you can.

Not all people can or are willing to do their own brakes.

[Phoenixtsintsin]

Is there and easy way to tell how much front pad is left on 06 other than waiting till it hits the scraper or taking the brakes apart ??

For the fronts, you can probably just shine a flash light onto the calipers to see how much pad is left. You may have to turn the wheel, but you probably don't have to remove the tire.

For the rears, it's trickier. You have to remove the tire and the plate cover.

[LarryAsher]

I did shine a flashlight in there and you can see the pad but it is really hard to tell how much pad is really left and if there are revets or not which would make a difference in how thick it is. Is there some way to measure it and know the least it should measure? The stealer told me I need to replace them but there is a lot of space still between the scrapers and rotors so I think they were trying to rip me off.

[XDGT03]

If there is "a lot" of room between the wear tabs (scrapers) then I would not worry. The tabs would be no where near the rivets...if there are any. Most pads are bonded not riveted so you can wear them right down to the plates.

However, if you let them wear to the tabs and wear them much then the tabs will grind into rotor. This may require replacing the rotors rather than being able to turn them. Rotors are about $25 ea new or $10 ea to turn. You may decide to replace the rotors no matter what.

Bottom line, if they are not to the tabs, you have time. There is normally around 1/2" of pad material on each pad for wear. if you have 1/4" left then you have half a pad left. That last half wears faster than the firsthalf though.

[hcmq]

there are no rivets on pads (disk brakes)

if you have rear drums there are most likely rivets

the best way to check pad wear is to take a wheel off and look into the hole at the top of the caliper with a flashlight. the pads should be even and the friction material should be 2-3/8 or more.

it really is no big deal to run the brakes all the way down to metal because the rotors that come on these vans are barely adequate and if you change the pads just before they scrape and just put new pads on the rotors will most likely be out of spec anyway.

replacing the rotors with new/better ones is easy and relatively inexpensive

[LarryAsher]

thanks for the info
i think im going to run them till
the scrappers are close to the rotors.