Brake part missing in 09 Altima sedan

bb700092

Recently I got the rotors resurfaced and brake pads changed in my 2009 Altima 2.5 SL from Raleigh Tire. Just after the job was done, I test drove the car and it drove well with adequate braking power. After a few days, I was checking the tire pressures when I found something protruding out from the brake caliper of the driver side front wheel. Fortunately, that part is not touching the rim yet, so the wheel is rotating smoothly and I never came to know about it until I accidentally noticed while checking tire pressure. The passenger side front wheel/brake is fine. Below I have included pictures of both sides.

Nobody has touched the car since the brake job. It has only been driven (very sanely) and it is driving and braking well. It seems a pin is missing and I suspect the Raleigh Tire mechanic messed this up when working on the brakes. Is it possible to purchase only the pin and fix this or do I need to change the entire caliper? Any other suggestion is most welcome. Thanks in advance.

Driver side front:
http://i66.tinypic.com/fmnaq0.jpg
http://i68.tinypic.com/10s4y09.jpg

Passenger side front:
http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll181/bb700092/PassengerFront1.jpg
http://i64.tinypic.com/vxjlhu.jpg

Mr_Shiftright

That site wants you to disable the viewer's ad blocker, which I don't wish to do.

Can you put these photos on your computer and upload them right here using that little "mountain" icon you see above the text box? (or if you can put them on a host with a URL address).

bb700092

Recently I got the rotors resurfaced and brake pads changed in my 2009 Altima 2.5 SL from Raleigh Tire. Just after the job was done, I test drove the car and it drove well with adequate braking power. After a few days, I was checking the tire pressures when I found something protruding out from the brake caliper of the driver side front wheel. Fortunately, that part is not touching the rim yet, so the wheel is rotating smoothly and I never came to know about it until I accidentally noticed while checking tire pressure. The passenger side front wheel/brake is fine. Below I have included pictures of both sides.

Nobody has touched the car since the brake job. It has only been driven (very sanely) and it is driving and braking well. It seems a pin is missing and I suspect the Raleigh Tire mechanic messed this up when working on the brakes. Is it possible to purchase only the pin and fix this or do I need to change the entire caliper? Any other suggestion is most welcome. Thanks in advance.

Driver side front:



Passenger side front:

thecardoc3

That is the pad return lever and it should be locked inside of the wear indicator as seen on the passenger side.

You can see the anchor pin where the wear sensor should be attached to the back of the pad. There are a couple possibilities, one is that the pads are mis-installed and the wear indicator that is "missing" might be on the bottom of the pad that is on the inside of the rotor. You might look to see if there is a wear indicator at the bottom of the pads. If so then they are reversed in that caliper. Another likely explanation is that the shop sources discounted pads and they don't always have all of the new and appropriate hardware, so the wear sensor might not be attached to any of the pads.

bb700092

Thanks for your response. The brake pads were purchased by me from amazon.com, so they had all the required hardware. Raleigh Tire provided the labor to install the brake pads, so they messed up. You are probably right that the pads are installed opposite (outside on the inside and vice versa).

thecardoc3

bb700092 said:

Thanks for your response.

Hold that thought. Getting to learn by experience is tough because you get the test first and the lesson afterwards.

bb700092 said:

The brake pads were purchased by me from amazon.com, so they had all the required hardware.

If the pads you purchased had "all" of the hardware, then why was the end clip reused? Experienced shops don't install carry in parts and educated consumers know this. When a shop sources parts, they can make sure that they really are getting everything that is required to do the job. Plus, the supplier stands behind them should there be a warranty question.

Then there is the profit side of the equation. The labor fee's alone are not sufficient to generate the profits that are needed to operate the business successfully. Missing profit from the parts sales impacts the shops ability to provide training and tooling. Other poor management practices along with allowing carry in parts impacts the level of the technician that they can hire (reflected in wages and benefits) and retain and so you end up with a situation like this where everything around the technician is wrong and somehow they are always supposed to get it right. Ultimately this ended up with you getting an improper repair this time which IMO is exactly where it should end up.

bb700092 said:

Raleigh Tire provided the labor to install the brake pads, so they messed up.

Absolutely, but they aren't alone in that. The question remains if they are going to learn from it. They didn't generate the kind of profit that the job should have returned and now they get to deal with a warranty issue and a dissatisfied customer. The tech will learn from the mistake, and ultimately realize everything else that is wrong about his/her situation and will eventually move on leaving a hole to be filled by someone else who has yet to learn these same lessons.

bb700092 said:

You are probably right that the pads are installed opposite (outside on the inside and vice versa).

Or I might be right and the pads you supplied from Amazon didn't come with all of the appropriate hardware as well.

bb700092

bb700092 said:

You are probably right that the pads are installed opposite (outside on the inside and vice versa).

Or I might be right and the pads you supplied from Amazon didn't come with all of the appropriate hardware as well.



I changed the pads on both front wheels using the same brake pads purchased from amazon at the same time. It is not the case that one pad didn't come with hardware while the other did. So whatever hardware they came with, after installation, both the wheels should look identical. But from my pictures, you can see they are not identical. That is why I think Raleigh Tire messed up.

thecardoc3

Look at the clip that is circled. It is not new.

bb700092

I am not sure I understand your point. Before my brake job, both wheels looked identical. The two brake pads were same. After the brake job, I expect both wheels to look identical but they do not. The only reason could be that the Raleigh Tire messed up the installation. This has nothing to do with new or old parts or what was replaced and what was not. Whatever was done should have been the same on both wheels but they are not, as my pictures indicate.

thecardoc3

If the new pads came with all of the correct hardware, why is old hardware still in use?

bb700092

I don't know if the pads came with *all* hardware (I am not a mechanic). However, I do know that both the new pads were identical, so after installation both wheels should be identical which they are not.

thecardoc3

bb700092 said:

Thanks for your response. The brake pads were purchased by me from amazon.com, so they had all the required hardware. Raleigh Tire provided the labor to install the brake pads, so they messed up. You are probably right that the pads are installed opposite (outside on the inside and vice versa).

Thank-you. Just because they were purchased from Amazon, that does not mean that they have all of the appropriate hardware. Until this is investigated and someone proves what hsppened all possibilities are in play. 

bb700092

You are completely missing the point over and over again. The brake pads might not have all hardware and I never said they did (read my last comment). All I am saying is, both brake pads were identical when purchased, whether they had all hardware or not. So after installation, both brakes/wheels should be identical. But they are not as you see from my pictures. No investigation is required and there is no other possibility. Period.

thecardoc3

Hmmmm.....

bb700092 said:

You are completely missing the point over and over again. The brake pads might not have all hardware and I never said they did (read my last comment).

Your first response states otherwise....

bb700092 said:

Thanks for your response. The brake pads were purchased by me from amazon.com, so they had all the required hardware. Raleigh Tire provided the labor to install the brake pads, so they messed up. You are probably right that the pads are installed opposite (outside on the inside and vice versa).

Next time go to a shop that does the whole job correctly the first time and expect to buy the parts through them. Any shop that allows you to carry in parts deserves the kind of grief that is caused by the possibility that questionable materials have been provided as well as does the person who thinks that it is OK to try and provide their own parts. The facts are that it's not OK to carry in parts and never has been. The fact that they haven't learned why to not allow it is exactly the lesson that this event should teach them.

bb700092 said:

All I am saying is, both brake pads were identical when purchased, whether they had all hardware or not. So after installation, both brakes/wheels should be identical. But they are not as you see from my pictures. No investigation is required and there is no other possibility. Period.

All four brake pads have to be identical for the wear sensors to be positioned properly in order to engage the pull back clips, not just "both" or two. I have seen discount pad sets (and you can find them on Amazon's site) that don't have all of the wear sensors and hardware. Until someone pulls the wheels and checks to see if the pads are equipped with the wear sensors on all four pads everything else is speculation and conjecture. So it needs to be investigated whether you believe it or not.