[cologc46]

I wanted to put this story on the record for other ZJ owners... Sometimes a lesson learned can be expensive, arrgghh.

2 weeks ago, I pulled my front rotors and took them to the local autoparts store to get my rotors resurfaced and get new brake pads. I used this same store about 6 months ago when I did my Ranger, and had no problems. (Edit: this store was not one of the cheapo chinese parts places)

The guy at the store did his thing and I bought the best non-ceramic shop brand pads. I looked at the new rotor surface, did not look right. He did a surface grind in the direction of the rotor spin, rather than off axis. I asked, whats up with that, he says, thats the way we do all of them now. Hmmm, ok.

Put my brakes together, and took it for a drive. Damn, the pedal felt spongy and I had no braking power on the front. I figured I got some air into the system when I compressed the caliper pistons. Aaarrrggghhh. So, I spent a few hours bleeding everything, which did nothing.

Took the rotors back to "the store", the pads were now glazed over too. They insisted that everything was ok, but went ahead and surfaced them again at my insistence. I sanded the glaze off the pads and put it back together. No difference, no front braking power.

I figured I must have screwed something up and I could not figure what. I set up an appointment with my jeep mechanic. Today he fixed it. Here is the summary...

The auto store guy did not grind the rotor flat. Looking at my rotors, my mechanic showed me how the pads were not making full contact. Plus, the grind was wrong, you need an off axis grind to allow the pads to break in properly. Of course, now, the rotors are too thin to resurface.

So, I ended up buying new rotors and paying a shop hour to diagnose that "the store" trashed my old rotors. So far, I am $300 into this front brake job.

My mistake: I thought the brakes were spongy and I had some hydraulic problem that needed to be fixed. No. Since the pads were not making proper contact, mashing the pedal down hard trying to brake fooled me into thinking the pedal was spongy. The feel of the pedal is the same but now, brakes bring things to a rapid stop with very little pedal. As it should be.

Bottom line: I was being green, reusing a perfectly good set of rotors, and saving a few bucks. In the future, I will just get new rotors. A set of OEM spec rotors only costs about $30 more than resurfacing the old ones.

And, I am going to stop in my local parts store to have a chat with the manager. I doubt they will compensate me a dime, but I am going to try.

[slow_motion]

well i learned my lession on my 97 zj doin the same thing. lol. but everyone is human and we all make mistakes.

[cologc46]

Followup: The parts store manager refunded me the grind charge and additional $50 for my trouble. I am not exactly pleased, but reasonably satisfied. He maintained the store did nothing wrong and figured the mechanic did more than he said he did (I had the shop invoice, and I trust he did only what was written on the invoice).

Edit: Since they made good, I edited out the franchise name. If you want to know, PM me.

[JrMechanic]

Not saying this was your problem as I agree with you on how to cut the rotors, but some of the high end semi metallic pads take a while to wear in properly (same with ceramic pads.) I know every set of Wagner Thermo Quiets I've installed have very little braking power for the first dozen stops or so, then it gradually increases. I stopped using them at the shop because people kept insisting there was something wrong with their car when there actually wasn't.

[cologc46]

JrMech. I dont doubt your experience with the wear in required. In my case, I broke in the pads properly, and then in the course of bleeding, testing, resurfacing the rotors, testing, bleeding again, testing, I probably put month's worth of breakin on the pads. More than a dozen stops for sure. Until the rotors were replaced, I could not get the ABS to fire, even on a slick dirt road.

If you dont use high end, semi-metallic pads, what do you use?

[slow_motion]

i like a simi-metalic pad for 4wheelin and a ceramic pad for road drivin.
i just hate the brake dust from the simi-metalic pads.

[cologc46]

Yeah, brake dust is ugly and a pain to clean off the snowflake wheels on my wife's WJ, I hate cleaning those wheels. On my ZJ, I have the AMR black D window wheels, so brake dust is not a problem.

[Technohead]

The lesson learned should be don't resurface rotors. They are cheap enough anyways. I always replace rotors and pads at the same time.

[JrMechanic]

Originally Posted by Technohead

The lesson learned should be don't resurface rotors. They are cheap enough anyways. I always replace rotors and pads at the same time.

Resurfacing rotors is fine, there's nothing wrong with it as long as it's done correctly and the rotor thickness stays within spec. Rotors for our ZJ's can be had for less than $25 a piece, so I opted to replace mine though.

At the shop I'll usually give the customer an option between house brand Silver and Gold pads (usually Wearever), or Monroe Ceramic pads. All of them are good pads in their own way.

I'm running Wagner Thermo Quiets on my ZJ. After 5,000 miles you can't tell they have any wear on them, however they're noisy and I've done everything possible to shut them up, so I've learned to live with a little squeal when I brake.

[slow_motion]

what pads does everyone like to 4 wheel with, simi-metalic or the ceramic???????????

[Virmagicus]

Semi here.

[bigbill888]

Originally Posted by slow_motion

what pads does everyone like to 4 wheel with, simi-metalic or the ceramic???????????

Damn, can you tell the difference?

[cologc46]

I was told that ceramic pads are prone to be noisier and wear the rotor more than semi-metallic, especially in off road use. Factory pads were ceramic and the factory rotors were ruined after 50K miles. The rotors I had on my jeep were still plenty good at 115K miles, but my local parts store trashed them with incompetent resurfacing. Like JRMech said, rotors are not expensive, I will just get new ones next time.

[Spike300]

I like EBC pads and summit rotors. Its good to hear that the store worked with you in the end.