Stock rotors and pads on my 03 need to be replaced. I purchased some Brembo blanks and Hawk HPS pads about two weeks ago with the intension of replacing everything over Easter break. Had a falling out with my father and decided to stop all work on my Max to stop his whining. He has offered to pay for the stealership to do the work (out of guilt I suppose) but I'm a bit hesitant both because I wanted to do the work myself (thats half the fun, right?) and because I know they won't care for my car the same way I do.

The Hawk pads I have need to be bedded in before use, and I don't trust the dealership to do this correctly. Is it ok for the car to be driven a small amount (like half a mile) before I do the bed in process?
Would it be a better idea to just replace the worn rear pads and keep the original rotors until I have time to do the brake job myself?

I don't want to have a dealership install the hawk pads and rotors and then end up with brakes that don't perform as they should.

What do you guys think?

Thanks

Just do it yourself, it's really not worth having the dealer (especially the dealer, not midas or equal) install them since it's easy.

You can drive a while before doing the bedding in process, just go slow at first to make sure the brakes WORK, then find a safe place before doing the bedding in.

I wanted to do them myself (especially since its easy) but my father insisted I didn't have enough time (This was last Wednesday, I'll be driving back to school tomorrow morning so I had 5 days to change 4 rotors, 8 pads, 4 springs and do a bleed job............) to finish. I really wanted to do it myself but stopped so he would stop bothering me.

I wont have a chance to do any work on my car until the semester is over in May. The rear brakes need to be changed now. The fronts can wait. The fact that he said he pay for it is nice but that completely defeats the purpose of this whole endeavor. I might just tell him that I don't want the dealership touching the parts I have because they are not familiar with them and then just do the job in May......by myself.

It takes 20 minutes to do the rear brakes, very easy. Go to the local wal mart and do it in the parking lot, not much room needed.

Space isnt the issue. I have access to a thousand square foot bay where myself and some of my friends design, build and maintain an open wheel race car for my schools FSAE program. I could just borrow their tools and do the brake job there if I really had to. The problem is time. I literally work do school work for 4 to 16 hours a day everyday of the week. This semester is a mechanical engineers worst at my school and it is the most important for me because majors are declared at the end of May. As everyone here knows, working on the car always takes longer than everyone expects due to unforeseen problems, troublesome bolts, etc. I'm going to be hard pressed to find a full weekend that I can devote strictly to servicing the Max. I'd be neglecting my school responsibilities. I also dont want to rush anything and make a mistake. This isnt a life or death situation so Id rather leave doing it at school as an extreme last resort.

So, then you're screwed? Stop posting and go do your brakes

Easter dinner in 45 minutes.......... Pedantic father in the other room...........

Trust me, if my father wasn't here, the car would have new brakes and would have been lowered by now.........

seriously, that's a 15-minute job, tops. Take it to your big warehouse and get it done. Do that instead of going to happy hour, watching TV, or whatever other leisure activities you do. You can't be "busy" 100% of the time

Dealer will charge you 2 hours labor ($150+) for the simplest of jobs....

your brakes wont be an issue but you will have problems lowering your car without a spring compressor. Also what is this bedding the pads in that you speak of? Is that just like wearing them into the rotor a bit to break them in?

Well then I'll forgo the party this Friday and do the brakes. Hopefully everything will go smoothly.

Autozone has them for rent. I'll just go to the one near school.

Bedding in the pads establishes a layer of pad material on the rotor. This enables proper transfer of pad material between the rotor and the pad during normal braking. IIRC, every pad manufacturer has their own specific bedding procedure but you basically brake moderately hard a few times from moderate speeds then brake hard from higher speeds.

the time you've taken posting and reading the replies you could have had them done by now lol

I wouldn't think that the dealer would even want to put aftermarket parts on your car. Then they would be responsible for them getting put on correctly. They wouldn't want that kind of liability.

How did you make out with it?

HAHA I got my maxima cheap because the kid I got it from was tired of modding it and had run into some problems. he "needed a new project". I brought it to the dealership to get some opinions, and he told me to return the car. I didn't cuz I got a great deal on it, but he didn't even want to look at it when he saw it had headers.

Maybe I wasnt clear, the reason I stopped working was not because of time, but because my father was complaining. I stopped to get him to stop.

I'm not going to do any work until Saturday, I've got way too much work to do this week. I'll stay in Friday night and study, then spend the day on saturday changing the springs, rotors, and pads, fix the bumper and window, bleed the brakes, change the plugs and the bank 2 valve cover gasket. This way I wont be behind in my classes and my car will have some new parts.