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How to Change Out Your Brake Pads
Brake Pads
Braking is the single most important action that your car performs. It doesn’t matter how fast your car can accelerate in however many seconds. A beast of a machine that can do 0-60mph in less than 4 seconds can be the most awesome way to put yourself into a wall if your brakes don’t work properly. As important as this function is, our brakes sometimes fail, usually due to neglect.
In order to make sure that your brakes always work, you must maintain maximum friction pad depth to insure full performance of the braking system. In other words, you have to change your brake pads. Before you change them, you need to know what kind of brakes you have. There are two different types of braking systems: disc brakes and drum brakes. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but we won’t get into that. You just need to know that, on most cars, disc brakes are on the front and drum brakes are on the back. And since 90% of the brake pads that you’ll ever change in your life will be on the front; that will be our area of focus.
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Smoking Brakes
No matter how reliable your vehicle is it important to know the limits of your brake system. This will not only keep you safe, but also save you from making extra trips to your favorite Utah brake repair company. It is especially important to keep your brakes from overheating.
As a vehicle is traveling down the road it has kinetic energy, or traveling or moving energy. Energy can never be destroyed but can be changed. The brake system will transform the kinetic energy into heat energy. When the brake system heats up a lot of undesirable effects can result. You need to be aware of these because some of them can cause some real damage to your vehicle.
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How Disc Brakes Work
Without a braking system, motor vehicles would be impractical for us to use. They help us stop our cars, maintain traction in emergency situations, and if you brake while in a turn, they help with that too. But many people may not understand how they work or what it takes to stop a 2,000 + lb. vehicle. In the following paragraphs, I will describe the basic components of a brake system, how it works, and how you can improve your braking system.
Although brake systems are highly engineered systems that are designed for safety and reliability, they are fairly easy to understand you know what the components are. There are two main types of brakes found on cars and trucks; disc brake systems and disc/drum brake combination systems. Older vehicles will have disc brakes on the front wheels and drum brakes in the back. Most modern vehicles have disc brakes at all four wheels, so I will be focusing primarily on that and will not cover drum brakes in this article.
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What Makes the Front End of the Car Wobble
Do you get the front-end wobbles when driving? You know that shimmy and shake that makes you feel as if you are on a fun ride. But, it’s not fun and, you can bet, it is taking its toll on your car. In addition to damaging other parts of your car, it can be downright dangerous for you and others on the road. Here are some key indicators and their possible causes:
Does your car’s front end shake when you apply the brakes? If so, this could be an indication there is something wrong with your brakes. In particular it could be a problem with the rotors on the braking system. The rotors can become damaged from any number of causes. The brake rotors could become damaged from not changing your brakes at their recommended mileage. Actually, not changing the brakes is the number reason why rotors go bad.
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Potential Causes of Your Brake Pedal Going to the Floor
You are cruising along one day just minding your own business. You come up to a light and notice you aren’t slowing down very quickly. In fact, you nearly have to push the brake pedal to the ground to get the car to stop.
Braking is one of those important functions that nobody really thinks about until there is a problem. If you can’t stop, you are going to be in big trouble! The good news is it is very rare for the brakes on a car to just completely fail outright. Instead, they usually start to evidence problems that get your attention. A brake pedal that has to be pushed to the ground is certainly one of those.
