28K - Rear Brakes Shot, Front O.K.?

[bkaiser]

Just had an inspection done at my dealer. The rear pads were down to almost nothing, were delaminating, and the rotors were trashed. The front pads have half the lining left, and the rotors look fine. All of the pads are original. Of the 28K on the truck, about 3,500 is with the 3100# camper in the truck, and about 800 of that with a 4000# trailer added. I don't think I have overworked the truck by any stretch.



The dealer had never seen this happen. My concern is that I have a bum proportioning valve and/or something in the ABS that isn't properly feeding the front brakes. If that is the case, I may be doing this $550 repair way too often. While the truck stops better than my '90 D350 did, it won't throw me into the belts like some have described these trucks braking abilities.



I've got about a week and a half left on my 3/36, so any thoughts would be appreciated.



Thanks in advance,



Bill

 

[JFaughn]

Get them fix under the warrentee , then put jack stands under the frame and a floor jack under the diff. and jack the rear end up and down to about normal , have some one touch the pedle while jacking the diff and this should give you and idea when and not the r. brakes grab ,but this should be part of there job of doing the warrentee work, its very comin from my expreance that dealers are parts changers not technitions that diagnose things , there is fewer of those every day it seems.

 

[Johnny5]

I'm kinda of curious about this to, the same exact thing just happened to me with 33k. Unfortunately I just had to get them fixed right away so I couldn't really check for the root cause. Worse yet, I could not get the rotors off because the inside lip where the e-brake shoes are, rusted up so bad and shrank the ID so much in that I could not back of the shoes enuff to clear the rotor... altho a sledge,prybar and 3 hrs of persuasion got them off.

 

[DPKetchum]

MOST four wheel disc brakes wear the rears faster. The pad matieral is differant(softer) and the rear pad size is smaller.

 

[JVolpe]

I just had mine checked at 33,000 miles or so. Front were wore a little more than the rear, but both with 5,000-6,000 miles left probably. I rarely have any load in the bed and tow light only.

 

[MMeier]

97. 1k in mine now. Fronts have 75% left and rears about the same. Towing from 18-22k# on a regular basis, truck with no trailers hooked comes in about 9,000# a major portion of the time . Mine must have something wrong then! :-laf

 

[bkaiser]

I had the work done when the truck was at the dealer, had the day off, near the end of the month, etc. , etc. If others are seeing the rears wear first, I'll start keeping a closer eye on them. My experience to date with four wheel disks and my driving style (wide open 'til you see God, then brake), has been that I eat the fronts before the rears. Maybe I'm not driving the truck hard enough!



Thanks for helping put my mind at ease folks.

 

[HOBrian]

I have almost 59,000 on mine know and I guess I will be looking at the brakes on Sunday after the meet in CT.

 

[RPiltz]

Has anybody other than u drove your truck ? If they left the ebrake on just once that could explain it. And it could have happened a long time ago

 

[jelag]

I have both, an 04 and 05 3500 dually... . the 04 now has 150K miles with factory pads, pulling a 18K lb trailer... . 90% of the time. . we've never been thru a full tank of fuel with this truck without a trailer attached... .



Also because of the weight transfer when braking an empty vechicle, the fronts do from 60-65% of the work... that's why the rear brakes are usually smaller... ... Some trucks that have high rear axle weight actually have larger brakes in the rear... .



The 05 now has about 35K miles and only see's about 30% of its time working hard... . we will retire an older truck this year, and replace it with the 05 and I'll buy a new driver for me in the future..... I'm hoping for an early release of the 5500's...



Back on topic... the rear brakes should last as long or longer than the fronts... you do have something wrong... . and its needs some very educated people looking at it... something that would be very hard to diagnosis in this forum unless we get very lucky. I know we have the educated people here... its putting into words and expressions that can be passed on...



Jim - A PacBrake Distributor. .

 

[HOBrian]

Has anybody other than u drove your truck ? If they left the ebrake on just once that could explain it. And it could have happened a long time ago

The caliper has nothing to do with the e-brake. The e-brake is on the inside of the disk, it's a drum.

 

[Hercules130]

Has anybody other than u drove your truck ? If they left the ebrake on just once that could explain it. And it could have happened a long time ago

i am pretty sure that our parking brake is a drum style in the rear rotor, so leaving the brake on shouldn't have affected the pads.

 

[jelag]

Often to remove the rear rotors the emergency brake cable needs to be backed off... . and / or the adjuster on the emergency brake shoes needs to be retracted so the shoes can retract and allow the rotor to pull off past the lip, in the edge of the drum...



These rotors are turned for the new pads and the drum can be cleaned up to allow the drum to go past the new emergency brake shoes is so installed.....



Jim

 

[bkaiser]

As several have pointed out, the e-brake is independent of the service brakes.



The only other driver of the vehicle is my wife (who drives at least as hard as I do), but all the 'heavy' driving with this truck has been by me.



Jim - I completely agree with your comments regarding something wrong with the truck and not being an easy diagnosis. I'm a degreed mechanical engineer and racer, and this has me both stumped and concerned. The primary reason I joined TDR was for this board - there is a wealth of knowledge here. Hopefully someone will have had the same experience and found a course of action to remedy it.



Thanks again for everyone's input.



Bill

 

[jelag]

Bill



My boy has his PE..... When I run into mechanical issues... we sit down and think through how the system works... and than try to trouble shoot what kinds of problems in the system can cause the end effects... . often we find that we're way over the heads of the trained technicans, and we find that the flow charts used by the the trained technicans don't teach them fully how the system works... There just led down a path...



To that end... . I wish you good luck in finding out what the problem is... . and we'd like you continue to share with us what you uncover... . One simple hint I'd like to share with you... an old guy who used to teach brake systems... shared that if you do nothing more than when you stop on a slight incline and release the brake, will the car or truck start to roll... . if not than you have enough drag to wear the shoes/pads out in a very short time... . I hate to do brakes so when I get into one of our trucks/cars and I stop, the first thing I do is take my foot off the pedal... its almost habit now... . we had a 95 F350 that 3 times in its 350K mile life stuck a piston in a caliper after the brakes were overheated and ruined the rotor... the boot would be damaged by heat, let some dirt into the caliper... . etc etc... .



Because you have both back wheels with this problem I'd first look to something common to both back wheels... a pinced line or hose... allows high pressure to push the piston out... but doesn't allow all the pressure to fall off and release the pistion...



I'm sittin here in a motel room, out on business and can think of at least 8 or 10 items that could lead you to this problem... Good luck... .



Jim

 

[RPiltz]

Oh I Thought He Said Rear Pads Not Rear Shoes

 

[jwduke]

I always thaught the rears wore slower than the fronts. I'd say someone drove with the emergency brake on, or else the proportioning valve is slow to release the rear calipers.

 

[DPKetchum]

Not always on 4 wheel disc systems. Rear pads are a softer compound and a much smaller pad.

 

[bkaiser]

I know this is pretty far fetched, but is possible the front calipers didn't get a good bleed at the factory and I'm compressing air instead of squeezing rotors up front? I'm assuming that the poor bleed would have to be on both sides since the front pad wear is even, and the truck doesn't pull under braking.

 

[DPKetchum]

Your right far fetched. Would have a soft very mushy brake pedal or low pedal etc.