Our family drives a 2006 pontiac Vibe and for the last 3 months I have been hearing the brakes get worse and worse. You know its bad when you stop at a traffic light and it sounds like you are in a plane coming in for a landing. It got to a point where it was too bad and I finally got around to taking it in to Les Schwab to see what the damage was. I choose to bring my car to Les Schwab because they run a complete diagnostic on the car for free and then give you a report on exactly what is wrong with the car. When they finished looking at the car, I was a little disappointed to see that they were going to charge me about $350 for a complete brake service. I wanted to see if they would throw in some oil change coupons, but they didn’t have any available. I decided to take the car back home and I was determined to do the repair myself to save money. My wife was a little more hesitant, but I assured her that I could complete the job for a fraction of the price.
The first thing I did was go straight to the internet to watch some tutorial videos on the process for changing rotors and brake pads. After absorbing all of the information that I needed, I jumped in our van and drove to the the Auto Zone. I was able to purchase two rotors and a set of brake pads for only $90. I threw the parts into the car and headed back home to try start working.
I jacked up the vibe and pulled the first wheel off and I could immediately tell that the rotor was in bad shape. From the looks of it, it was almost completely worn down. In the video I had watched, the rotor had simply slipped off, but I pulled on mine as hard as I could and it wouldn’t budge. I then noticed that it had gotten so hot that the metal fused together and I got the ingeniousness idea to grab a sledge hammer. When in doubt, grab a sledgehammer. With one fatal smack, the rotor popped off just as I had hoped. I threw on the new on and reattached the calipers on both sides. In just two hours time, I had taken a $350 charge and turned it into a $90 charge. How’s that for saving money? Needless to say, my wife was very pleased. Although, on her first ride in the car, she was sure buckled up tight in case the brakes went out. So far, everything has worked out great and we have not had any problems with them for the past three months.