Hey guys, both of my rear calipers are sticking, and I am debating on if I should pay the 150 in labor to get it fixed or do it myself. Rock Auto has the front calipers loaded with Raybestos QS, which is what I was going to go with, but they say that they don't make the rear calipers for our years? Anyways so now instead of 60 for the loaded calipers I am looking at about 80 per caliper plus about 45 for the metal masters I am going to get instead. So I guess my question is two fold, does anybody know of a better place/price for the calipers, and any tips on the caliper job. Most of the posts that came up on my search(great to have it back )talked about the calipers or break replacement...but nothing specific on the caliper itself. Thanks in advance....

 

I also have a drivers side rear caliper locked. Where are you getting a price of 80$ for the rear calipers? I called nissan. They charge 215 for each front caliper and $335 per each rear caliper. Absolutely ridculous prices. I have a wholesale connection, and the price for the fronts are 40$ each and the price of the rears are 100$ which is a significant reduction in price from the dealer, however if you say you have found the rears for 80$ each thats even better. So do you care to share the info?

 

go here...

http://www.rockauto.com/


and actually they are closer to 70... but you do have to wait a couple of weeks to get the refund on the core....the cardones that come loaded are with Apex pads? So that's why I am just going to load my own...seems like a lot of people have been having trouble with these lately...how many miles are on your max?

 

'95 MAXIMAS are notorious for having the rear calipers lock up. Unfortunately, the only solution is to replace them. I paid $150 apiece at my local speed shop, but a friend did the job for me real cheap. I also had to replace the rear rotors at $50 each.

 

what do you mean a refund?

 

By refund I think he means you mail them your old calipers and they in turn give you a partial refund of the price you paid....its called a core refund.


So how did you all discover this problem, squeeling or did you notice when replacing the pads? I ask cause I was doing my rear brakes and for the life of me I couldnt get the piston to go in far enough for the new pads to fit over the rotors. I broke 2 huge U clamps with a breaker bar and wasted all my break fluid bleeding tryin to release the pressure

 

well I bought my car with 76k miles on it, and right when I drove it out of the parking lot I felt that the car wasn't braking right, and I told my father this however hes a cheap bastard, and didn't want to pay so it never got checked or fixed and I was poor. Now I have 95k miles on it and have had a few near death experiences in the rain because the brakes work at 50% of what they should.

 

Try

http://nissan-auto-parts-dealer.com/

$122 for the front.
$320 for the rear.

 

Are they not reconditionable? I reconditioned the front pretty easily and fixed the problem.

 

i'm pretty sure my fronts are locking. I also would like to know what a worn break pad looks like....mine are squealing like crazy.

 

Thats because the rear caliper is not the same as the front caliper. The rear calipers have screw-in pistons and the fronts have a push-in type. You have to turn the piston to get it to compress.

Instead of everyone buying new calipers why not get the ones of your car rebuilt. There is a guy near me that will either sell you a rebuilt one or her will rebuild yours for you.

 

No shoot, one side compressed rather easily with the u clamp but the other no way in heck. So how do I go about rotating the piston while I apply pressure.

fearthegecko - worn brake pads will have very little pad left when you look at them sandwiched in the caliper. There will be less than an 1/8th inch left depending on how far gone. The pads have a metal indicator that extends the width of the pad to a certain point and when the pad wears down to that point the metal indicator will begin to hit the rotor when you brake causing squeeling, and letting you know its time to replace.

 

There is actually a special tool that is made for these types of calipers but it is not necessary. You can use needle nose pliers to put the points in the groves and turn like you are tightneing a bolt. It is threaded so no downward force is needed other than to keep the pliers on the piston. I hope you didn't screw up the piston by clamoing it in. I would keep an eye out for a bad caliper.

 

yeah after you change the calipers you send them your old ones and they give you the core charge back. Unless you step up to a big brake kit you are basically getting a remanufactured caliper, but most of them come with some type of gurantee. I had a lot more dusting on my driver side rear as compared to the other tires, and I had squeeling as I would drive down the road, until I hit the brakes....So I figured the brake wasn't releasing all the way and had worn down to the noise maker...they have a tool at Advance for the back piston....but as somebody else said you are supposed to be able to just use a set of needlenose...

anybody have any info on the actual caliper removal? I haven't looked at my haynes/chiltons yet, but I feel like it should be pretty straight forward, maybe one or two steps different from just doing the brakes....

 

piston with a C clamp.

For those looking at the rear calipers, I just did these myself. I went to the junkyard for rear calipers. From Nissan
, you will be looking at $300 plus per caliper. Junkyard parts are just good.

 

you can't use a c clamp on the rear can you?

 

to the front.

For the rears you need to buy a tool that looks like a cube with notches. Kragen , Pep boys , autozone would have this.

It does look like a cube.

-john