ssballin

gotta get my vin off my car when i get it back to the shop then ill be doing this...ready to replace mine AGAIN and i bought the car brand new a little over a year ago...dealership doesnt wanna cover it under warrenty because its a wear item..bullshit...i was told there is a 70/30 ratio of brake distribution and i havent had to change my fronts once

Tomtwtwtw

Had my pads replaced @24k miles...not necessarily a short lifespan for the rear brakes compared to some others, but what concerned me is this -

Driver side outer pad ~ 40% material left
Driver side inner pad ~ less than 1 mm - probably a matter of miles before metal on metal contact

Passenger outer pad ~ 25% material
Passenger inner pad ~ 25% material


So, to me it sounds like the driver caliper is not sliding completely, and causing premature wear on the inner pad. The passenger side wore almost completely even on both pads - if both wheels had worn even like that, I could have gotten 30k out of them.

coffeeslug

Sorry if this has already been covered, but if my GM dealer "fixes" my rear brakes with new parts, are they just going to replace them with the exact same parts? Like if they resurface the rotors and put on new pads, will the replacement pads or other parts just cause the same problem all over again, or do they actually perform a long term fix to the problem?

SuperchargedSS

rotfl

Sharkonwheels

I now need a third set of rear brakes, car has only 10,600 miles. First factory set went out about 4800 miles or so. And it is a concern, as the parking brake is useless, and my driveway is angled.

Going to contact the dealer in a couple days to pay another visit, but I'm past the 12 months...
Let's see what they say, considering it's documented already that they were replaced at 5000 or so miles.

Brakes weren't "worn," the pads were COMPELTELY glazed over, and the rotors had grooving, but not too bad. They cut the rotors, and changed the pads. Of course, pads weren't in stock, so had to wait about 3-4 days, and then return.

ssballin

i just called GM directly and complained about it. Since theres only like 45 ppl that have filed and there are thousands of cobalts..they basically are just under the impression that theres like 45 ppl that just wear the **** outta the brakes. Im hearing back from them soon to see if they are gunna replace them for me.

mrgrinch

iTrader: (1)

will let my buddy's know about this, both them have this problem with their '08's.....

Audacity

Just had mine into the dealer for it's first service and they pretend that they don't know there is an issue but they had no issue with re-turning the passenger rear rotor and grease the slid pins with no argument! I told them that I can guarantee that I'll be back with the same issue and if I am I want new pads and rotors not machined.

When I picked up the car I read the techs comments on my copy of the service and it said, "Customer complaining of noise from rear brake but could not duplicate. Re-machined rotor due to premature wear causing groove. TSB Notes: Brake pad compound too aggressive for rotor material."

clippie2004

We bought my cobalt with 230 miles on it brand new (its a 2009 TC). At 413 miles my car threw a code for a misfire. The dealer said they could not replicate the issue. We brought it back numerous times until finally they heard it. They replaced the injectors...the misfire came back. They cleaned out the injectors...it came back. We've had numerous problems, but the most irritating is the brakes. We have had the rear pads replaces, the rear rotors sanded twice, then they replaced the rotors because it was still a problem. I had a caliper sticking so bad one of the times I had it serviced that the dealer made us leave it with them until they got the part in because it was too dangerous to drive. Well, less than a month after having my rear rotors replaced they are grooved again and today a service brakes soon light came on. I sent my documentation and formal complaint to GM customer service but the person who "took care" of our claim said that there was nothing they could do. My car runs like sh*t, and it dangerous to drive!! I'm really pissed off and never buying another GM product again...I have never bought anything other than GM, but that is going to change now.

CudaJoe

iTrader: (1)

welcome to the site!

about the missfire thing, are you letting the car do its cat warm up?> or as soon as you start it, you drive it type of thing? The rotors and pads are a well known issue that GM can not seem to fix, you gotta fix it yourself. Buy premium rotors from NAPA or R1concepts and some hawk ceramic pads or EBC pads. When replacing rotors and pads, add brake grease to the sliding pins (coat them real real good)

Audacity

Well if you read two or three post up I had GM turn the brakes well only 3 days after it was in I can see a groove starting already on the outside of the rear rotor in the exact same spot! I'll take this as far as I can with the dealer and then we'll see about the R1 Rotors and Hawk pads as well.

clippie2004

The misfire actually showed a code because it was so severe. The dealer says that it is something to do with the car's carbon buildup in the injectors. We use premium fuel so its not that. The dealer said that there are more cars than just mine on the records with the issue, and the GM is unsure of how to fix the problem so until they can get a "fix" the only thing they can do is continue to flush out the injectors. As far as replacing the pads and rotors I do not have that kind of money to invest in the car, and I quite frankly am so fed up with the piece of junk I don't WANT to invest an additional money. It should not be my responsibility to fork out money to fix an issue that should not exist. It should be GM fixing it. Yet, they have tried to fix the brake issue 4 times now (it will be 5 times when I take it in the shop Tuesday) and have failed.

Sharkonwheels

I filed my complaint, and there's like 80+ in the Federal system...

08SSTCRD

Get some freaking $40 Wagner Ceramic pads from the Auto Parts store and quite complaining. People act like its the end of the world that their rear brakes are wearing, its a wear-and-tear item, regardless of the fact that they are having issues with premature wear. The pads are too aggressive and the slides stick. Replace the stock pads, lube the slides with some high temp ceramic brake lube (Permatex makes it) and be on your way.

As for the misfire, thats the first I've heard of that issue.

I don't know what kind of car you think you're going to buy that will have ZERO issues or possible issues, you aren't going to find it. People say "well I'm going to go buy a Civic Si ect ect", well have fun when your synchros are trashed at 5,000 miles and Honda won't replace do anything about it, and have even more fun when your timing chain tensioner gives out and causes the engine to come apart. Mazdas been having all kinds of problems with their Mazdaspeed 3, everything from turbo failure to complete engine failure (conrod through the block) on bone stock cars. No car is perfect. I'll gladly deal with a premature brake wear issue than deal with the **** a lot of these jap cars are having recently.

emiller

He will learn. So many people think Japanese = perfection, American = junk.

dandaman15

The timing chain tensioner is only a problem with people that have non-stock cams. I have never heard of any one having it fail on a completely stock Si. There are plenty of article about this in magazines and forums; if you want to read about ill gladly show you where it says that.

I will admit that you are right about the transmission, but usually only the kids that race them have an issue. There are plenty of people that have no issue what so ever with it because they arent slamming the gears and driving it like a race car. Point being: if you know how to drive manual it shouldnt be a problem, but they are sensitive so hard shifting will cause them to wear them.

08SSTCRD

Already read about it. Thats how I know. And yes they can and will fail on stock engines, just takes longer.

The 6 speeds are complete junk no matter how you drive them. They interviewed a 40 year old guy on a news channel who's brand new Si already has trans problems with only 2,000 miles on it. And it was just a commuter car. It has less to do with the way its driven and everything to do with an extremely poor design, undersized components, and crappy materials. There is even a TSB out that says for owners not to skipshift the trans, because the crappy as synchros can't make up for the difference in RPM, and damage will result that will NOT be covered under any warranty. My T56 has a built in skipshift feature, and it works flawlessly, regardless of RPM. Then again its a Borg Warner, not some piece of trash jap crap. Not only that, but Honda manual transmissions still don't have synchronized reverse. Honda is so damn cheap, there is no excuse for any manual trans to not have a synchronized reverse these days, especially on a top of the line $24K performance model.

redninja6r

It's off topic, but I'll chime in. I traded in my 06 Civic Si that I bought new on my SS/TC. In fact I ordered the Si and waited for it when I bought it. The transmissions have problems and you don't have to be a teen-racer to encounter it (check out the many many problems reported on 8thgencivic and templeofvtec). I'm 48 and have driven standards my whole life, so I'm not slamming the gears. Driving like a race car? Si means "Sport Injected" and it is supposed to be a more aggressive car than a regular Civic. Si is not a trim level. The problem many are having is when you shift into 2nd, it either just won't go, or it grinds going in. Some are also having problems with 3rd. My car did both. Honda won't address it. My car also had the annoying "rev-hang" issue that was addressed by Honda with a re-flash, but the problem was still there. I may not be current, I got rid of the Si 18 months ago, but it was a big problem with my car and I don't fit into the "only kids that race" catagory.

Permafried-

On the brake note, my R1s are on and I took the time to look into every single solitary piece of the front and rear brake system with the stock components on. Overall we came up with the following having done two cars in the garage Sunday afternoon:

1. Two different pad compounds had been used with the stock rotors (friend had his replaced once). His rotors were grooved everywhere on the inside, heavily heat scored and flat out failing. Mine had grooving on the inside only with both rotors showing grooves the exact same distance from the outside of the rotor.
2. Front rotors on both cars (with vastly different KMs on them) showed the stock pads are pushing INTO the rotors but the pads themselves were essentially brand new.

Based on looking over absolutely everything and taking it apart and cleaning it, at least on the two we did I think I can safely say the following about the stock setup:

1. The stock rotors are garbage, the steel is not up to the task. The pads have no slots to dissipate heat and road grunge which also is not helping the issue. My friends rotors were an absolute mess and they had been machined once already; mine were warping (front), had a slight vibration under braking and **** had become embedded IN the rotor, looked like brake pad imo but I never bothered to do much with it.
2. The grooving on the rear rotors is simply the pads being too agressive a compound for the stock rotors. There was absolutely nothing on either car rubbing, our slide pins were well greased on both and my sliders (on the pad holder) still had some grease remaining. The grinding noise is just that, the pads eating into the rotor because now that the HPS and R1s are on both, neither of us can hear it anymore. Keep in mind this observation is using 2 different pads, I had stock and he had Napa....both obliterated the stock rotors over time with the Napa ones making a particularly large mess of heatspots all over the rotor AND they have metal all over the back (my guess is some form of support) which rusted to the rubber surrounding the rear piston. Getting those off without doing damage was a task and a half, things were glued to the damned thing.
3. The rear pad holder....my god where do I start with this thing. All contact points for the pad are rough metal and prone to rust build-up. I spent a good 45 minutes cleaning each one and finally managed to get MOST of it off. The casting itself is suspect, my friend's had a divot (yes a divot) right across the middle of the outside pad slide rail that was ~1mm deep, doesn't sound like much but makes a great spot to get bound up. Pushing the pad over it it still moved but it's not as smooth as it should be. I'd suggest to the majority who may not have done a service yet to remove the rear calipers, remove the pad holder, give it a ridiculous cleaning and grease the living hell (ok within reason) out of any area where the pad comes in contact.
4. My inbound/outbound pad wear was consistent with what it had been when I caught the caliper binding. My inbound was ~2mm smaller than my outbound BUT this was also the case when my caliper bound up in November. When I removed the slide pins (which saw all winter months of driving since the service) they were still realtively well greased (but it's like the caliper is eating it ) and no binding had been observed since. I cannot stress this enough for anyone with a new TC PULL YOUR SLIDE PINS, CLEAN THEN AND GREASE THE HELL OUT OF THEM this WILL help to stop the uneven pad wear, but as per above i THINK pads are occasionally binding up on the pad slide rails as well but in my case couldn't say this happened.
5. Watch your front brembos with the stock pads for a lip forming around the inside/outside of the rotor. My friend had 55,000km on his and had a 2mm lip, I have 20,000km and had ~1mm lip. All I can attribute this to is the stock pads being to "stiff" (lack of better term) for the stock rotors and there's a chance they will start to press into the metal as opposed to sloffing off pad. Beyond that the fronts were generally fine, but I still don't think the metal itself is up to the task and I seriously believe the pads need a slot to vent the pads from factory.

I think that's it for now, I should really write this up elsewhere but these are just thoughts I threw together while they were still fresh in my head. Bit much, so crib notes:

• Metal of front/rear rotors is not well matched to the compounds of the stock pads.
• Slide pins must be havily greased as they are not from factory. Recommed checking them every 12 months depending on driving conditions (if wet more often)
• Slide rails on pad holder prone to rust build-up and should be cleaned/lubricated about once per year (preventative maintenance)
• Watch front rotors for lip forming around inside/outside, stock pads pressing into rotor instead of pad wearing.

sportballa4eva

done

Sharkonwheels

I don't know about anyone else, but I expect a brand-new car to NOT wear out the rear pads in 4000 miles TWICE ina row. Even my Tundra, wth 2 years of towing, did not do that.

Factor in that the rear brakes are used MUCH less than the fronts, and there is definitely an issue.

Go and buy your Wagner's if you wish, but that is NOT proper - this is a defect, and needs to be corrected. My car has 10,800 miles and now needs a THIRD set of rear brakes, and the fronts are still just fine.

08SSTCRD

How are the rear brakes used less than the fronts?? When you apply the service brakes, both front and rear slow the vehicle at the same time. The rear brakes are often proportioned to provide more braking on newer vehicles to help even out front to rear wear.

Please, do tell. Since you seem to be the expert on brake systems, where is the defect?? There is a notorius lack of lubrication of the slide pins from the factory, but thats not a defect. They simply need to be lubricated. The pistons don't stick, the rotors are true and within spec, and the pads are just typical ceramic pads. So whats the defect, expert?? My brakes have been fine and have 46,000 miles on them. No excessive wear, even inboard/outboard wear, and the rotors are good. Its called keeping the slide pins lubricated with the proper ceramic grease.

motogp34

where can you buy these Hawk HPS pads and R1Concepts rotors and they will solve the front and back brake issues ?

Stamina

R1Concepts rotors can be bought from... R1Concepts

Hawk HPS pads can be bought from R1Concepts, but is also available from our other venders (Over the Top Performance and Turbo Tech Racing to name a couple).

Yes, at least everybody I've witnessed that had an issue no longer does after the switch.

motogp34

THX, went to the R1 website and they only list up to the 07 model ?