Lately, the idea of taking some of my work to a local shop to ensure it gets done better than i could has been biting me in the rear. 

 

First it was a shop that couldn't do my alignment because they said they couldn't adjust my sleeve.

 

Today i take my brake rotors in to get turned. Let alone they are one of only few shops around that even turn rotors anymore! So i tale them in and come back in 45 min as they told me an hour to do the job. 

 

I wait out in the car and the guy comes out and tells me the rotors are too big. He wasted 90 min of my time before bothering to come out and tell me he couldn't do it. He said he's never had this problem before and that the rotors were like an 1/8" inch too big. I was MAD!

 

I'm so fed up with people and their lack of effort. I feel like stupid is out  breeding smart!

 

Anyone have suggestions? 50$ a rotor from oh really but these rotors are good and never been turned. I was also told people just replace things now, not re work things...

                I've seen how you stop

     

I did ceramics on another truck once and hated them. So it's been metallic pads for me ever since. 

This all reminds me of my experience a little over a year ago now when I had a local Cummins service center do some work on my truck right after I bought it. They couldn't get the injector lines to stop leaking at the head. They tried telling me the head was cracked, then they tried thread sealant, which worked but was the wrong answer in my opinion. I finally told them to forget it and id fix it myself. A couple hours, carefully tightening and some scotch brite had the leaks stopped. I went back to show them and have them redo the new tapper cover gasket that had popped out of place a day after they installed it. I showed the service manager how I fixed the leaks and he asked if I was interested in a job lol anyway, overall a very bad experience with them. Now no one else touches my truck unless it's really necessary. As far as rotors go, I recently had to add new ones to my truck. It had some nice grooved ones on it when I got it, but they were badly pitted. I wanted to get them turned, but it was looking like it would have been more expensive than new ones, if I could evenfind someone to do it. Nice thing about autozone, they have lifetime warranties on everything including pads and rotors as well as many other things. 

Edited August 5, 20168 yr by leathermaneod

9 hours ago, IBMobile said:

                I've seen how you stop

     

I downshift coast a lot makes them tailgatin'  folks go around.

 

It's funny.... a lot of folks must be testing their brakes cause they sure speed up so they get to stop hard at the light. Taking about my 5 speed 1st gen DD.

Edited August 5, 20168 yr by JAG1

Like my own rotors. At 185k miles when I did my first brake job. I had them turned on a lathe and trued.I had them measured bofore and after and only took .040" of a inch on the worst one to get it true again. So here I'm at 267k miles and still rolling on my OEM rotor and my second brake job no issue. 

In the seventies and early eighties the only time I would machine rotors, there was a brake lathe where I worked, was if the brakes went metal to metal. This was with the asbestos pads. 

When semi-metallic pad were introduced I stared to see brake rotors warping and rotors wearing out in 2 to 3 sets of brake pads, also a lot of noise complaints.

 I'm still up in the air about ceramic pads.  I haven't had much experience with them. The talk about them is they "do" and "don't" wear out rotors, less dust that doesn't stick, quiet,  last longer than other types of pads, don't dissipate heat very well and not good for heavy duty braking.      

Ceramics eat your rotors quicker than metallics. Pads are cheaper to replace than rotors if you go metallic. 

 

One thing that I'm really irked about is i have to remove the lug studs to do the brakes. I wish they would have of thought about that earlier than my truck...

 

I did find an auto shop that had a brake machine that could turn my rotors while still on the truck but they wanted 30 a rotor. 

32 minutes ago, hex0rz said:

I did find an auto shop that had a brake machine that could turn my rotors while still on the truck but they wanted 30 a rotor.

 

That's cheap... Local shop here was doing rotor turning for $40 a rotor.

The place I talked to about doing mine told me "we have a machine, but we don't do it, and if we did it would be between $50 and $70.

its oem or semi metalic for me, I would never consider ceramic pads due to brake fading and rotor warping due to high heat, i

5 minutes ago, 01cummins4ever said:

its oem or semi metalic for me, I would never consider ceramic pads due to brake fading and rotor warping due to high heat, i

 

Exhaust brake first, budget pads second. Typically it's very rare for me to even touch my brakes being I do major of stopping on the exhaust brake. Budget pads so I have the lowest content of metal in the pads to prevent eating the rotors. 267k miles and still using OEM rotors yet, turned once and never been replaced.

1 hour ago, Mopar1973Man said:

 

Exhaust brake first, budget pads second. Typically it's very rare for me to even touch my brakes being I do major of stopping on the exhaust brake. Budget pads so I have the lowest content of metal in the pads to prevent eating the rotors. 267k miles and still using OEM rotors yet, turned once and never been replaced.

yep, you got it going on with your set up, with the auto trans our trucks are probably working 3 times as hard as yours trying to stop, I haven't looked into alternative braking for the auto trucks a lot, but do know they are available, maybe one of these days when the funds are right. but until then I will just keep throwing pads on, I'm on my second set of rotors at 280k, but I change pads about every 40 or 50k and they still have life left in them when I change them

First pad change was at 185k miles. Here is what I removed at 185k miles.

 

Fronts...

 

Then the rears...

1 hour ago, Mopar1973Man said:

First pad change was at 185k miles. Here is what I removed at 185k miles.

 

Fronts...

 

Then the rears...

My rear drums are lazy...... I think they are on just looking for a free ride 

That can be resolved. There is ways of handling drum brakes. I've got them on my 1996 and work good.

1 hour ago, Mopar1973Man said:

That can be resolved. There is ways of handling drum brakes. I've got them on my 1996 and work good.

and what would that be? I have heard of people changing out the wheel cylinders but haven't looked into it to much

Wheel cylinders, manual adjustment of the shoe slack, if you got the weight valve on the rear removing the rod and tie the arm in place.

1 hour ago, Mopar1973Man said:

Wheel cylinders, manual adjustment of the shoe slack, if you got the weight valve on the rear removing the rod and tie the arm in place.

ok thanks, mike. I will have to move this up on my to do list.

I have rear drums and and the proportioning valve for the rear axle and my brakes work very good.  As Moparman pointed out, exhaust brakes make a huge difference in overall wear and tear of service brakes since you learn to rely on the retarding power of the exhaust brake to do most of the "slowing".  "Stopping" is still reserved for the service brakes though. 

 

I replaced my front pads with only 115k on the truck.....and there was almost 1/4" of material left.  Why did I change them?.....well I'm not really sure.  I guess I had the new ones and I had everything apart so why not.  And maybe because I know that when the caliper pistons extend too far then they can start sticking upon retracting them back in place.  Heck, the pads were only $50 or so.

 

Yes, on the rear drums you have to make sure the star wheels remain properly adjusted, which can be more problematic in high corrosion areas.  If using the e-brake while rolling backwards doesnt allow them to click every so often then you have to pull the drums and see if the adjusters are seized up from corrosion.  Other than that, simply being hard on the brakes will generally cause more long term problems than not and eventually reduce braking ability.

Edited August 6, 20168 yr by KATOOM

..and what are you doing in inclement weather situations? You don't want to be using your exhaust brake and causing a loss of traction. 

 

If i start paying more than 30 a rotor for a turn, it's almost worth just buying new rotors. But i was warned about that. The idea of making it cost prohibitive to work a used product over instead of just buying new...