I bought my 98 SE in June of 2002. A month after the purchase I had to put new calipers, rotors and pads on the rear because the calipers were frozen. January of 2004 they froze up again, and of course they were out of warranty, so I took the car to a different mechanic and had him replace the calipers, rotors and pads. Last week I started to here the familiar sounds coming from the calipers again.

I've put less than 44K miles on it since I bought it. I'm not hard on brakes, if anything I am harder on the transmission because I have gotten used to slowing down with out braking a lot.

Is this a known issue or did I just get two bad sets of calipers? Also, should I look into a particular name brand this time?

Thanks for your help..

 

How did you verify they were frozen? Were they sticking? How many sets of pads did you go through for each set of calipers? Did you change the pads out yorself? Did you re-grease the sliding pins on ghte caliper assembly before installing new pads, if indeed you did install them yourself?

 

Maybe find another mechanic as well???? Were the calipers really frozen???? Something doesn't sound right. My 6 year old 99 with over 100K on the clock has never had any problems with the rear calipers. Some guys on here do have calipers go bad, but 2 sets in a row in less then 2 years says something isn't right.

 

My 98 I30 started a leak last year at the drivers side rear, man did that thing go through brake fluid, anyway i got them changed, and the've been fine since.

What kinda calipers are they getting? and what kinda fluid?

 

.. .. how in the hell did they spring a leak? That's dangerous ... From the 'bleeder' valve, or from the line itself?

 

i had both my rears go out around 140K one went and then a week later the other one did

 

So, essentially they went approx at the same time?

 

I'm sorry guys, I wasn't clear. Midas was the first to work on it. THEY told me that the original ones were frozen. When I took it back to them they told me that it was frozen again and that it was out of warranty. So I just took it to a different mechanic, and told him that the calipers were frozen (going on what Midas told me). This guy has his own shop and gave me a good price. I guess the calipers are two different brands, but I can't be sure.

I am getting a rubbing noise at all speeds (even when I brake).

The brake fluid level is still at a normal level. I don't know what kind it is.

 

Try and inspecting your brakes on your own, and verify that they are indeed dead/frozen. Getting a Haynes manual and/or FSM might help too.


Seems like they're trying to you.. or Midas has parts.

 

yes sir they did and im the one to replace them and inspect them always done the brakes myself so i know they were frozen for real.

 

More than what kcryan and 98SEdriver can say

 

True, but it was about 0 degrees at the time, and i didnt really feel like being outside for that long, or having very un trustworthy brakes for the next few months.


From the piston somehow, contrary to what everyone here will tell you, a pin hole leak will not drain your brakes in a matter of minutes/secconds, but rather in a few hours, or mabye mine was smaller than a pin hole.

 

I got ~150 on my car and never heard of rear calipers going bad, they are a b*tch to retract and replace pads on, but our cars hardly use the rear brakes anyway.
Knock on wood, hopefully they never go bad.

Can you do something silly and replace your rear calipers with front calipers? The front ones are much easier to perform maintenance on.
I had the rear pads for ~60k before I had to replace them, the fronts about every 30k or so.

 

It's not a matter of draining.. it's a matter of getting air in the lines and also, brake fluid is very hygroscopic. (loves water)

But they still are quite essential in our stopping ...

Key word here, silly, dont ever mess with the words brakes and silly ...

Explain how the rear are so much harder to work on? Besides the extra tool... they are the same difficulty ...

 

its just you. since no one else will say it i will.............

 

well i tend to use my e brake alot so that could be what caused the caliper to freeze. its no big deal i got both of the calipers for cost rom my buddy at nissan so its all good. I dont really trust anyone else with my car because of the horror stories i read on all these forums. it seems like everyone gets dooped by shops and the dealership(obviously) you live you learn.

 

I am not claiming otherwise, I have seldom heard of rear brake troubles.

you mean just the words..right?

I had one hell of a time trying to get the left rear to retract, I finally gave up put the old pad back one and drove it to my mechanic. The right rear was easy. The mechanic had one hell of a time getting it to retract as well. I question the design, why can't they be like the fronts? The fronts do most of the stopping and potentially don't pose the same amount of maintenance problems.

 

Then you must seldmomly be on the 4g forums ...

I was making a point with a humerous(or so I thought ) phrase... Point = Don't do anything silly and mix/match front/rear caliper components

You never said that, and from your post, it seemd as if you had not done anything yourself, but instead let your mechanics do it for you.

 

well I don't check it everyday, I hang out more in the auto-x forum, but seriously 4g have lots of rear brake problems?

some other cars have the very similar calipers front and rear, like my old rx-7, they didn't have the stupid retract tool. I don't remember a lot of the cars I used to help people work on having that tool requirement.

fair enough, but why would I be b!tching about the rear caliper if I didn't try to do them myself?
I just replaced the rear valve cover, and even though the dealership screwed me up and gave me the wrong part which caused me to have to rent a car for 2 days I still spent hundreds less than what my mechanic quoted me when I got my car inspected. If you got the tools, doing it yourself it not only cheaper, but you can make sure it's done right.

 

Happens all the time here.


Maximas don't ... it's related to the ebrake mechanism.


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