Yesterday on my way to the gas station I heard my rear brake on the drivers side grinding to find out the internal part of the emergency brake doesn't release the piston off the rotor I can move it back and forth by hand. I need new brake pads anyway and to find out the other side I can turn the piston but doesn't go back in. The three times I have done rear brakes this is the second time I have had to replace the calipers. I am sure the MN winters have something to do with it to but these caliper designs are the worst.

 

I hate the calipers too. I leave my e-brake off in the winter now, just for the fact they had gotten stuck a few times.

 

GM w-body calipers are worse. Trust meh.

 

OEM rear brakes on the 5th Gen in general are a poor match for the car. It's not just the materials, it's the specs. I think the rear brakes are too weak for the car. I'm about to install my 3rd rear brake setup in 7.5 years and only 57K miles, and only the original was OEM.

 

just got my new calipers and pads. Good thing I bought a motive brake bleeder so it makes bleeding brakes way easier. What sucks is the fact I am replacing the calipers that I had powdercoated three/four years ago.

 

It's the rust guys. It's a different story out here in the Southwest.

 

I just replaced my rear calipers yesterday. And did pads/rotors all 4 corners too.

Holy crap car stops like nothing I've ever seen, it actually stops better than I thought a 5.5 would ever be able to..

Not even too much work, at least the design is simple to work with.

 

I hate to add to the resurrection of a dated thread, but I replaced my rear calipers for the first time at 215k 10 years old.

 

we need to find a solution for this, replacing calipers as much as pads and
rotors is not acceptable.

I replaced the OEM rear calipers due to being frozen with aftermarket ones 07/2007 along with rotors and pads. And those now are allready showed signs of freezing around 12/2009. So I upgraded the pads/rotors and hoped that brake service would help, but still today show signs of freezing even on the new pads/rotors.

It seems like our options are limited. But hopefully witht he power of the org we could find some kind of solution. I know off the bat the 6th gen rear brakes dont easily work like the front because of e-brake design.

 

Constant maintenance unfortunately.
I recommend cleaning/lubing them at least every 6 mo if you want them to last as long as a normal caliper would last (haha)

Some people have had success getting some fresh clean brake fluid in around the seal to help lubricate it, and of course make sure your slides are good (nothing to do with the piston sticking, i know)

That's all you can do, or R&R the calipers entirely as most of us seem to be doing.

 

i was told last june my rears were shot, so i guess its time to replace them now where did you guys get the calipers and how much were they? i figure i might as well replace the rotors while im at it. \

and john, you are on your 3rd set at 57K. damn rochester winters must be alot worse than LI winters, im at 64K

 

Got my calipers from Napa.. Re-man.. they are working great so far. The e-brake bites awesome and the car stops flawlessly. All my brakes on all 4 corners are Napa mid-grade parts and loving it! Wanted the made in Canada rotors over the made in China rotors, so I paid a little extra. I replaced around 90+K miles.

 

Spray them with form oil periodically? It's pretty sticky and should stay on there.

 

Hate that too.....I had on my brembo crossdrilled on the rears then when I'm driving one day notice smoke not fire smoke but metal burn kind coming from my R/L caliper the piston damn deer died it wasn't letting my rotor go so I pick one up from autozone painted it blue and replace my rear drills with the brembo slotted and hawk hps. .... stops much better now and no smoke : )

 

costs of loaded calipers and rotors and the best place to get cheap...john???

 

Had new calipers put in 2 years ago in February, got them from NAPA. February of this year they started to stick and screech.

My solution was:
-take off caliper
-take off caliper bracket
-remove and clean pins
-clean the sockets in the caliper bracket, i did this by just filling it up with brake cleaner fluid, letting it soak a bit, then dumping it out and with a small screwdriver cleaning out all the tiny grime left. then i sprayed out the sockets again for good measure
-grease up pins and re-assemble the rear brakes.

did the trick, no more screeching, no more burned brake smell.

one other thing i noticed was that the brake pads were stuck in the caliper bracket slots, and would not move freely. so even if with the pins and sockets cleaned up and greased the pad would still get jammed against the rotor. i cleaned up the slots on the caliper bracket so the pads moved more freely.

do that every year and hope for the best

**this did not involve any bleeding of the brake fluid.

 

I recommend getting a set of reman "loaded" rear calipers. Takes care of it!

 

just for everyone's info the slider pins on mine are tottally fine checked em myself and also had a shop check them, yet still showing signs of freezing. So yeah next guess its probably the piston. I will definately check that, i also heard of the ebrake not letting up and being able to adjust that, but not specifically with our cars.

also for everyones info i have been hearing the brakes making contact ever so slightly around town for a few months yet not much smoking. Highway contact is unoticable untill you get off the highway and the first stop you come too they smoke like a ciggarette from them being so heated up from the highway speeds.

yeah more info on this reman loaded caliper please I believe my aftermarket calipers that are almost shot were from NAPA too.
obviously when i upgrade these calipers i want to do it right and not replace them with whats allready there

 

I agree but you never know, maybe some other nissan model has a caliper that would work with ours, just like the 6th upgrade in the front.

 

Maybe, but I don't know of one.. So for now, I will maintain what I have.
It's always the piston, the slides are almost always fine. I will just lubricate my piston as much as possible and hope it lasts, trying to keep the rear brakes clean as well.

I don't mind doing the maintenance cause I'm a DIYer anyways.

 

No caliper pistons should ever rotate in and out. What a pain in the ***. I've replaced several, but when it came time to do the rears in my I35 something didn't work right and I ended up having to replace an entire caliper because the brake pedal went to the floor.

(Took it to Midas to have them replace the one - MISTAKE - and they said that the other rear was rusty so it needed to be replaced too. I said no, and a week later, the brand new caliper was just as rusty, if not more so, than the original one. WTF.)

 

well here is a solution for you guys

http://www.mattblehm.com/rear_kit.htm

 

Same here. I even file or grind a little bit the tabs on the pads to make them smaller, allowing the pad to move without resistance.

 

I just replaced both rear this past weekend with 93k miles on it and even replaced all pads and rotors with blanks and PBR metal master. However i went through hell replacing them b/c the left rear was defective and ironically it was that side which happened to be the one that was frozen the first place. But the end result is what matters.

 

anyone have a diy for removing the rear calipers. Ive done fronts but the rears with the parking brake seem like a pita

 

Same deal as fronts. Use some pliers and take the tension off the ebrake spring (remove spring) and remove the bracket for the ebrake cable. done. The rest is the same as the fronts.

 

Interesting. Doesn't look like any set up Ive ever seen. Also doesn't look like it accepts regular brake pads though (very 1st paragraph says it uses all regular replacement parts from auto stores) - unless I'm missing something?