I am more of man now, for I have changed my own brake pads.
We recently took our car in for an oil change and safety and emissions, and several hundred dollars later we finally got the car to pass. Now we like our mechanic, and we feel that he is an honest guy (if a bit proactive) but he is a little pricey. The rear brakes didn’t pass safety inspection (who knew? not us), so those were taken care of at the shop, but he also recommended doing the front brakes too, as they wouldn’t last until the next oil change with only 1/32″ left on the pads. His quote? $280. I was in no mood to spend that as well.
So I embarked on a journey through the wonderful thing we call the Internet and Youtube videos, and found that changing your own brake pads is actually quite simple. It’s just a process of removing your wheel, unscrewing the caliper, and switching out the old pads for new ones. There are several other things that you could do while in there too (resurface or replace your rotors, etc.), but the mechanic had said that the rotors were in good shape, and just the pads needed to be replaced. I decided to take on the challenge.
Saturday was the first nice and sunny day we’ve had in a while, and so I went to AutoZone and picked up new ceramic pads for a whopping $54.99. Came home, put the car up on a jack, and went to work on one of the wheels. I took it slow, since this was the first time I’ve done brakes, but it actually went quite well. The one snafu I had was when trying to get the caliper piston to go back in to make room for the new pads, and I couldn’t do it with my sheer, amazing strength alone, and found that everyone online was using a C-clamp to get the job done. Luckily, AutoZone had one of those too, and we were back in business.
Overall, the whole endeavor took a little bit longer than any experienced person would have taken, but it only cost us about $70 in all, saving a couple Benjamins, and seriously boosting my pride in my mechanical skills. ;) Paige was really nice and thought that I was pretty cool, probably just because my fingers were all dirty, which is the sign of a good job well done. Everything seems to be going well with the brakes and we’re quite happy to have done it ourselves and to have saved some money in the process. Thank you Internet!
Resources I found helpful:
- Changing brake pads on Nissan Altima (YouTube)
- General Brake Pad Changing (YouTube)
- Ridiculously long and unorganized but thorough playlist of changing brakes (YouTube)
- Edmunds’ Guide to Changing Brake Pads (Edmunds)
- And about 50 other searches for random small questions like “Where do I put the grease that came with this kit?” and “How do I get the caliper piston to go back in?” Good times Google, good times.