600$ for Brakes!!!

[jp4130]

This car warps rotors too easily, be careful with that.

Mine warped at 10K, not too hard driving either.


Luckily dealer covered the resurface job on that one.


Also, pick your brake parts carefully. Cheap pads or rotors (if you choose to replace them instead of just resurfacing your stock ones) make for a bad decision. Remember, this car has record-breaking brakes...and you'll lose this advantage with the wrong pad. Similarly, you may actually GAIN if you pick the right pad.

Which ones warped front or back?

Yea, this kind of stuff is easy. But, i will gurantee you one thing, you will have pride in your accomplishment and gain more confidence with doing other maintence or upgrade components in the future. If you get stuck, just post up and we will help you out. Be sure to get that Caliper tool, its quick and painless that way!

This is my first Mazda, but see if you have dust seals on the rotor. if you do, you will need to remove them with a brass punch and hammer, otherwise, they will charge you for new ones. It also wouldnt hurt to repack your wheel bearings either.

I changed my old mz3 pads without that tool; it was not quick and definetly not painless.lol

I could be wrong here but I seem to remember doing brake jobs without bleeding at all just never crack open the bleeder things and do it dry.

I think it is probably good practice to bleed your brakes often, definitly as freqently as you replace pads at bare minumum.

 

[Bufalo]

Once you start doing the simple jobs like this yourself, you start to get angry about how much labor costs at any garage, especially when you consider the fact that they have air tools and lifts.


If you can turn a ratchet, you can change your brakes. I've never popped the reservoir cap when compressing a piston back into the caliper. It's never a bad idea to bleed your brakes. If you don't bleed them, be sure to pump the brake pedal a few times before you pull the car out of the garage - it will ensure that the pads are seated against the rotor and that you don't roll down out of your driveway into the street while stabbing wildly at the brake pedal...

 

[el_Don]

When I first got my car, the previous owner had never changed the brakes. I took it to just for brakes to get the $99 brake change.

"What a great deal" I thought.

The next day I went back to the shop and they told me that the rear brake calipers were 'frozen'. I had never heard of this, so as I looked down at the car I saw that the emergency brake line was tight: they had the e-brake on. I put it down and everything was fixed.

I came back the next day and again there were problems. This time they felt that my front calipers were frozen. I live in Houston Texas, it does not freeze down here. I asked them what they would have to do.

"Well, new calipers, new brake lines, new pads, and labor, we can do it for you for about $800."

I considered the offer....j/k I told him to put it back together and have a nice day.

That weekend I changed them myself, no problems, nothing 'frozen'. They were just trying to rip me off.

Moral of the Story: If love your car and love your money, do the work yourself because no one cares more about your car than you do.

Looking back, I wish I had taken pictures for a how-to. I have 4 disc brakes, just know that the rear brake plug is hidden behind an arbitrary screw.

Good Luck