28k front pad life?

[AtlantaVUEV6]

Took my '07 Vue to the dealer this morning to fix the driver's heated seat, busted sun visor, and turn the rotors, all under warranty.

Got a call, and they refused to deal with the rotors under warranty, and were telling me I only had 20% front pad left, after only 28k miles! Never have I had street pads last that short, and it sounds like most people here get much more life from the OE pads. Dealer trying to hose me? I told them I'd just deal with the brakes on my own; no way I'm paying $200 to turn the rotors and replace pads. Sheesh!

Update: They called back after "talking with the manager," and agreed to turn the rotors under warranty. Might get me another 10k miles if I'm lucky before having to full-out replace them.

[Luma46]

Took my '07 Vue to the dealer this morning to fix the driver's heated seat, busted sun visor, and turn the rotors, all under warranty.

Got a call, and they refused to deal with the rotors under warranty, and were telling me I only had 20% front pad left, after only 28k miles! Never have I had street pads last that short, and it sounds like most people here get much more life from the OE pads. Dealer trying to hose me? I told them I'd just deal with the brakes on my own; no way I'm paying $200 to turn the rotors and replace pads. Sheesh!

Update: They called back after "talking with the manager," and agreed to turn the rotors under warranty. Might get me another 10k miles if I'm lucky before having to full-out replace them.

Just curious why did you request to have the rotors turned - do you feel any pulsation when breaking or are they warped for any reason? Or do they just want to turn the rotors because they intend to replace the brake pads. 28k is definitely very low milleage for the pads and if you cannot check it yourselves, have somebody else to give you a "second oppinion".

[AtlantaVUEV6]

Yep, lots of pulsing. I've known the rotors have been warped since ~10k, but delayed until now to take it in for many reasons (wife and my daily driver/"truck").

It's no big deal for me to do the brakes on my own (I'm a certified mechanic) I just thought that since it is still under warranty...and I hadn't even considered the pads needing replaced yet, so hadn't even looked.

Serves me right for assuming that having a warranty saved me any work and money :upset:

[BobbyP]

If you don't keep the back drums in adjustment I'd say 28k is correct because the front brakes are doing all the work.

On all 02-07 VUE's you need to go to an empty parking lot and while in reverse hit your brakes moderately hard for the rear drums to adjust the shoes. Repeat this several times. Doing this every 3-4 weeks will keep them adjusted.

Once they're adjusted you'll feel your VUE stops flatter and doesn't squat down from all the load being stopped by just the front brakes.

[Tom92SCm]

I've got about 62,000 miles on my original braking equipment at all 4 corners. The only service I've done to them is I greased the slider pins about 3,000 miles ago.

And in my opinion, you should never get your rotors turned. Turning the rotors won't 100% get a new, smooth braking surface. Hard areas, called cementite, form in the grain structure of the iron rotors due to the heating of the rotors through normal use. When you put the rotors on a lathe and turn them, the cementite areas can actually deflect the cutting tool, leaving that area as a high spot which will then turn into a hot spot, which will then tend to accumulate more pad material in that area and give you that "warped" rotor pulsation. And not to mention that one of the main functions of a brake rotor is to disappate the heat generated from the brake pads. Removing rotor material lowers the rotor's ability to remove heat, which causes the rotors to get hotter, which causes more pad material to be deposited which leads to that "warped" rotor pulsation.

When you install new pads and or rotors, bed them in properly together. Check out the technical section at Stoptech for bed in procedures and brake system operation:
http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/tech_white_papers.shtml
I bedded my brakes in when my VUE was new. I'll probably easily get to 75,000 miles on the factory braking equipment.

[AtlantaVUEV6]

Thanks for the advice/opinions. I'm well aware of proper bed-in procedures, as well as the problems with turning rotors. If this were my race car, I wouldn't be doing it, but it's a daily/utility driver.

Rear shoe adjustments? That should be automatic, or at least be helped with semi-frequent use of the parking brake. I'm not sure how I feel about the "need" for moderate/hard braking in reverse.

Anyway, just checking to see if 28k was a typical life. I'll just check the pads when I get the car back. The last thing I like doing when I get back from work is deal with my own car ;)

[leogag1]

I would simply add that 28,000 miles, it is not so bad (if rear brakes were never adjusted). I usually do a lot less than that with a pad set! With my previous VUE (2005), I did only 35,000 km (not miles! It means around 22,000 miles) before changing the pads and the rotors. I have to admit that, a few times in summer, I tow an RV (3200 lb) and even if this RV has brakes, the VUE's brakes were more solicited (is it an English word? :dizzy: Sorry, my native tongue is French! :usa:) than normal. If you do mainly city driving with many stop and go, it is normal to do less mileage with a pad set. This is now very common with almost all car brands: new materials used for pads is less durable than asbestos, and cars are always heavier than previous ones.

I agree with other writers: replace disks, don't turn them! Aftermarket disks are not expensive and do the job! :)

[Tom92SCm]

Frequent use of the parking brake helps to keep the drums in proper adjustment? I have a 5 speed manual, and if that's true, then my rear drums should be in good condition because the VUE is always parked with the parking brake set and the transmission out of gear- unless it's parked on a steep hill and then it's left in gear.

The automatic equiped VUEs may not use their parking brakes all that much- although I still use mine on my automatic Protege everytime I park it.

[shofast]

I don't think I have seen a system where drum brakes are adjusted by the parking brake actuator, it is actually the other way around. Adjusting the brakes makes the parking brake also adjusted.

[BobbyP]

Thanks for the advice/opinions. I'm well aware of proper bed-in procedures, as well as the problems with turning rotors. If this were my race car, I wouldn't be doing it, but it's a daily/utility driver.

Rear shoe adjustments? That should be automatic, or at least be helped with semi-frequent use of the parking brake. I'm not sure how I feel about the "need" for moderate/hard braking in reverse.

Anyway, just checking to see if 28k was a typical life. I'll just check the pads when I get the car back. The last thing I like doing when I get back from work is deal with my own car ;)

The driving habits of most drivers never apply the brakes hard enough in reverse to keep them in adjustment. Applying the parking brake does not adjust them.

Try what I told you and you'll find a noticeable improvement in the front/rear balance while braking. There was one person on this forum that habitually would manually adjust them during oil changes. Believe me the automatic adjustment doesn't work well for most VUE owners.

Of course how often and how you apply your brakes has a lot to do with their life. No two drivers are the same. I saw one man wear out his pads and rotors in 10k miles, he drove with two feet one on the brakes and one on the accelerator.

[leogag1]

The automatic adjustment feature of drum brakes rarely works well. First, it does not work with the parking brake. It works only with the normal brakes when backing-up. One has to drive relatively fast for this system to "engage". It is a kind of balancer that "swings" from front to back that spins the brake adjuster the equivalent of "one click".

But for this system to work, the brakes need not to have seen road salt, slush, dirt, etc. Otherwise, is becomes jammed and it does not work anymore! Here in Canada (the same applies everywhere the roads are covered with de-icing salt) this system is almost useless!

The easiest way to adjust drum shoes is to remove the tire, remove the little piece of rubber that covers the adjusting knob behind the drum (on the backplane) and adjust it manually with a flat screwdriver. You can do it twice a year while rotating your tires (or when changing for winter tires).

[AtlantaVUEV6]

Just a quick update:

Got the car back, finally. The dealer "found" a couple issues that they so kindly fixed for me. Too bad the issues didn't exist when I dropped it off (broken driver's side seatbelt? non-functional remote locks? I think I would have noticed...)

Pads are fine. When they need replacement, I'll replace the rotors with new aftermarket stuff at the same time.

[hawthorne]

I Just replaced the Pads on my 2003 Vue yesterday. It has 75,000 mile on the original pads. The left inboard one was squealing, But the R/H pads had about 1/4 left on them. Maybe the earlier Vue models were different but 28,000 mile is pretty bad.