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Doing a brake job myself help please

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Thanks for the info now .I just need to figure out how to bleed the brakes (not sure if I have to do something special )because off it being a tesla my leaf was no different.
Do yourself a favor and either buy or make a pressure bleeder (I took the latter route), it is the tesla recommend way and it works a charm, no need for an assistant to pump the brake pedal in sync with you and you put less wear on the master cylinder. The order is LF-RF-RR-LR for reference, though I highly recommend you look at a copy of the service manual, you can either get it at service.teslamotors.com or in other less scrupulous places on the internet (there are some forum posts about that). I would recommend a 2 year change interval especially if you live in a winter climate where they salt the roads worse than cod. After two years my fluid was brown coming out of the calipers and dark yellow in the master, some get away with never touching it, but it's so easy and such cheap insurance.
 
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Brakes are the #1 safety system, and anyone saying brakes are an easy job made for rookies probably has not worked on many heavy vehicles that have been driven on roads that are heavily salted for a wide swath of the year.

I am keeping my Model S clean and free of salt as much as possible, and was hoping that the brake components would last for 200,000 km of service with just fluid change and inspections. I'll be watching the thread now though, and keeping the air tools maintained...
 
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I am at 45,000 but they just started grinding .
142 is sweet. I talked to another guy who was a 100,000 on his first set.
I'd have a visual look at pad depth first (depending on your wheels you could try a camera with flash to try to capture without taking the wheels off) and if they look good try a few moderate to hard brake stops. My brakes make loud grinding noises against the rusted rotors until a couple of decent brake applications (as has been recommended on the forums by other members in the past).

My pads and rotors appear in brand new shape after 50,000 kms, 18+ months of Canada all-year use (after a couple of moderate stops that is).

With regen you may only be using a bit of actual brake and the noise generated after a rain can be quite loud under these conditions, eg. under light applications after a couple of idle days in wet conditions, it can be laughably loud for me.
 
My pads required replacement at 55,000 miles. I have cold regen limit for at least 1/3 of my driving. (Winter). I accellerate quickly and need to slow down quickly at times.

Good luck.
You should schedule your overnight charging to end close to when you leave in the morning. Charging warms the battery and allows for full regen when it's cold out.
 
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The most common mistake doing brake maintenance is with bleeding.

The Brembo performance set up has to be bled on both sides of the disc. There are pistons and therefore bleeds inboard and outboard of the disc. i.e. 8 bleed points, 2 per wheel.

The single piston setup will only have 4 bleed points, 1 per wheel.

I have a full write up on how to swap rotors over at RB which is where I got my rotors. You could use that write up for a Camaro as well.
 
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The most common mistake doing brake maintenance is with bleeding.

The Brembo performance set up has to be bled on both sides of the disc. There are pistons and therefore bleeds inboard and outboard of the disc. i.e. 8 bleed points, 2 per wheel.

The single piston setup will only have 4 bleed points, 1 per wheel.

I have a full write up on how to swap rotors over at RB which is where I got my rotors. You could use that write up for a Camaro as well.


Link for the write-up? I ordered the camaro rotors a while back and they did not fit as the offsets were wrong. Pads were the same as the Camaro SS though.
 
I agree with bi-annual brake fluid change mostly to save expensive repair of the ABS system. I use a Mighty-Vac to extract fluid at each wheel while keeping the master cylinder topped up. It's fast and easy however it doesn't save callipers from corrosion. I recently had to replace callipers on 10 year old vehicles that were seized. The problem always starts on the driver side of the vehicle where the wheels take more spray of salt/brine during winter (my theory). As the pads wear the pistons are more exposed even though there is a rubber boot for some protection. Pushing the piston back into the cylinder becomes difficult and the caliber needs to be changed.

The good news is that for older vehicles your original callipers can be rebuilt for about $65 each and they are then a perfect fit when replaced.

Brakes in salt/brine environments of winter driving take a beating and eventually need to have components replaced. It's part of my maintenance plan.
 
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I was wondering how long it would take, I didn't think it would be the first reply though!

ah TMC... the only car forum on the internet that is outright hostile towards car enthusiasts.

Go look at the forums for ANY other car, and most of the content is on how to modify the car. This forum? you suggest modifying anything and you're instantly told that it's illegal and it'll kill you.

The only approved topic to discuss around here is how great Elon is and whether the next version will include your desired change (because changing it yourself is "illegal", "immoral", and "kills baby seals"...)



 
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So, a lot of you are talking about changing brake fluid every couple of years.

I've been driving for 25-ish years. I've owned (hmm) 6 cars. The first two didn't last long (I was a bad driver out of the gate... highly recommend parents spring for proper driver's ed for your kids!) and I had one that was primarily for parts development so let's say 3 cars. I had one for 11 years, one for 8 years and the current one I've had for 7.

I have never changed the brake fluid in any of my cars

Further, I've never even had it recommended to me at service that the brake fluid be changed.

Not once.

So how is it you guys are all talking about every 2 years?

But maybe its me, not you (like every g/f said) so I did some searching. The consensus? There is no consensus. There is no universal recommendation. Each manufacturer invents their own recommendation and some don't even make a recommendation.

Given that I never died... never had a brake failure... never even had slight problems with braking... I'm inclined to think that the manufacturers that suggest quick changes (Mercedes is an example) are the ones that make a whole lot of money off service (Mercedes is an example).

This is the answer I got from this Cars.com article:
The recommended intervals for changing brake fluid are all over the board depending on the manufacturer, from as often as every two years to never. Really.

My personal conclusion isn't that my experience was the right experience and everyone should ignore it. Actually, quite the opposite. I'm a little freaked out that it never came up. I never gave it a thought and I never read that you should do it regularly until this very thread (and I'm in the automotive industry! Albeit on the electronics side, but still). And it bugs me that manufacturers can't be bothered to provide a real answer. It is clear to me that it isn't THAT big of a deal and 2 years is probably vast overkill... but leaving it completely up to the owner to figure out on their own isn't right either.

I'm probably going to go change the fluid this week and set a Google Calendar reminder for 5 years :)
 
So, a lot of you are talking about changing brake fluid every couple of years.

I've been driving for 25-ish years. I've owned (hmm) 6 cars. The first two didn't last long (I was a bad driver out of the gate... highly recommend parents spring for proper driver's ed for your kids!) and I had one that was primarily for parts development so let's say 3 cars. I had one for 11 years, one for 8 years and the current one I've had for 7.

I have never changed the brake fluid in any of my cars

Further, I've never even had it recommended to me at service that the brake fluid be changed.

Not once.

So how is it you guys are all talking about every 2 years?

But maybe its me, not you (like every g/f said) so I did some searching. The consensus? There is no consensus. There is no universal recommendation. Each manufacturer invents their own recommendation and some don't even make a recommendation.

Given that I never died... never had a brake failure... never even had slight problems with braking... I'm inclined to think that the manufacturers that suggest quick changes (Mercedes is an example) are the ones that make a whole lot of money off service (Mercedes is an example).

This is the answer I got from this Cars.com article:

My personal conclusion isn't that my experience was the right experience and everyone should ignore it. Actually, quite the opposite. I'm a little freaked out that it never came up. I never gave it a thought and I never read that you should do it regularly until this very thread (and I'm in the automotive industry! Albeit on the electronics side, but still). And it bugs me that manufacturers can't be bothered to provide a real answer. It is clear to me that it isn't THAT big of a deal and 2 years is probably vast overkill... but leaving it completely up to the owner to figure out on their own isn't right either.

I'm probably going to go change the fluid this week and set a Google Calendar reminder for 5 years :)
Like I have said before: most likely the majority of cars on the road still have the same brake fluid in them that they came with from the factory. All of the EVs I have owned (Leaf, i3, and Model S) have all recommended changing the brake fluid every two years.
 
Like I have said before: most likely the majority of cars on the road still have the same brake fluid in them that they came with from the factory. All of the EVs I have owned (Leaf, i3, and Model S) have all recommended changing the brake fluid every two years.

The danger is that brake fluid absorbs water, and the boiling point of the fluid decreases when it is saturated. Hot brakes with old fluid is dangerous. Dirty fluid causes increased wear on pistons and master cylinders.
 
So, a lot of you are talking about changing brake fluid every couple of years.

I've been driving for 25-ish years. I've owned (hmm) 6 cars. The first two didn't last long (I was a bad driver out of the gate... highly recommend parents spring for proper driver's ed for your kids!) and I had one that was primarily for parts development so let's say 3 cars. I had one for 11 years, one for 8 years and the current one I've had for 7.

I have never changed the brake fluid in any of my cars

Further, I've never even had it recommended to me at service that the brake fluid be changed.

Not once.

So how is it you guys are all talking about every 2 years?

But maybe its me, not you (like every g/f said) so I did some searching. The consensus? There is no consensus. There is no universal recommendation. Each manufacturer invents their own recommendation and some don't even make a recommendation.

Given that I never died... never had a brake failure... never even had slight problems with braking... I'm inclined to think that the manufacturers that suggest quick changes (Mercedes is an example) are the ones that make a whole lot of money off service (Mercedes is an example).

This is the answer I got from this Cars.com article:

My personal conclusion isn't that my experience was the right experience and everyone should ignore it. Actually, quite the opposite. I'm a little freaked out that it never came up. I never gave it a thought and I never read that you should do it regularly until this very thread (and I'm in the automotive industry! Albeit on the electronics side, but still). And it bugs me that manufacturers can't be bothered to provide a real answer. It is clear to me that it isn't THAT big of a deal and 2 years is probably vast overkill... but leaving it completely up to the owner to figure out on their own isn't right either.

I'm probably going to go change the fluid this week and set a Google Calendar reminder for 5 years :)

Kelowna is a Canadian desert and very dry so you may have survived without absorbing much water into the brake fluid. It's a simple process to change the fluid and if it reduces corrosion of internal parts, the process has value. I keep cars for the long haul and have repaired many brake systems so that may influence my thinking.
 
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You *should* be able to look to the automobile manufacturer for proper information on this... unfortunately it's just not the case. However, if you are going to look for a good, educated answer, then look to the companies that are in the hydraulics business, and not the companies putting pieces together to sell a car business.

I would be a vastly more relaxed person if everyone had good quality tires, rotors, pads, and brake fluid. I'd feel just a bit more confident that they could avoid hitting me in an emergency situation. Unfortunately, as already pointed out, the vast majority of cars on the road have the original brake fluid, along with the cheapest tires they could find, gouged rotors, and cheap pads.

Take a look at the color of new brake fluid verses 10 year old fluid. There's a whole lotta bad going on inside there. You have contaminates, molecular breakdown, and depleted characteristic specs. This all leads to reduced braking in an emergency situation, or in a repetitive heavy braking situation.

Truly, you could probably put vegetable oil in there and be alright for a little bit, but that doesn't make it proper. o_O
 
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I do the change every two or three years. It's been scheduled as a two year interval on many cars I've owned. Since the supplies are cheap and the job is simple I treat it as an easy way to justify doing a physical inspection of the braking system.
 
I like the way brakes feel after changing the fluid. Much firmer (less spongy). Dissolved water in the fluid makes the fluid more "compessable" so the brakes will be less strong with old fluid. Sure, the brakes will still work, but not as well.