The Nissan Path

Hi guys. I'm in need of some big help. This brake squeal is driving my wife crazy. Which means it's driving me crazy too. She has an '07 Pathfinder and managed to squeeze 78,000 miles out of the original pads and rotors. I replaced them a month ago with Napa rotors and Nissan pads from the dealership (front & rear). After a week of use, they started to squeal. The noise would happen while applying low pressure on the pedal, but would go away after moderate to heavy pressure was applied. So last weekend I bought new Napa premium quiet stop pads and put them on (front & rear). Things were good for 4-5 days. Then the squeal came back. I put in new shims and used the Napa VRC red pad compound on both the front and rear sets. What am I doing wrong? Am I missing some thing?


Thanks for any help,
Rider

Brake dust? improper breaking in of brakes?

Took some brake cleaner to them a couple days after the squeal started. No luck. I'm not sure they have been broken in improperly. I can say that they have not been hammered down on in an emergency or panic stop though.

Thanks,
Rider

Then i'm pulling blanks, maybe lube or flash rust?

hey! Good news I just found a troubleshooting guide to brake problems in the service manual located in the generation specific sections.

pandarturo88 wrote:hey! Good news I just found a troubleshooting guide to brake problems in the service manual located in the generation specific sections.

Can you link to the service manual you are talking about? The one I found only has 8 pages and no troubleshooting section.


Rider

sure what year is your car?

pandarturo88 wrote:sure what year is your car?

'07 Pathfinder. Thanks!

Rider

http://www.thenissanpath.com/filelib/R51/Service/BR.pdf

That should take you to the manual. Hopefully it helps

Got it... thanks again. A couple things I noticed: I put grease (the red Napa VRC) on the outside of the pad shim where it contacts the caliper and on the other pad shim where it contacts the pistons. Could be where I missed applying between the shim and pad? Also, does anyone actually use those springs that attach to the front and rear of the pads? They are thin gauge wire and in a v-shape. From the factory, only the fronts had them and it was only one per caliper. The new pads had two per caliper and were a time consuming b@%ch to get on (but I did it successfully). If I'm gonna tear into these one more time, I wonder if it'd be okay to skip putting them back on. The rears did not have them.


Thanks,
Rider

Well... after countless tear-downs and multiple combinations of possible solutions. I finally have this damn thing figured out.

What I tried: New pads. New caliper shims. Napa VRC red isolation paste. Scraped off all the VRC paste and put on anti-seize at all metal to metal contact points. Removed pad shims/plates and put more anti-seize on.

Finally: Paid really close attention to what was actually squealing. Narrowed down to the rear brakes. Well... the only thing that hadn't been replaced were the rotors. So I put on the original factory rears... and guess what? No squeal.

Those rotors were brand new from Napa. I don't know what happened there. They were cleaned and broken in just like the front ones. No noise up front all. The only thing I see out of the norm about them is from day one, they developed a very light coating of surface rust over every inch of each rotor (except for the surface that pads come in contact with). The Napa fronts have no rust anywhere on them.

So now the question is... do I take them back to Napa and try to get a refund for them? Or just have them turned for the next brake job? If I have them turned... is it the metal composition that made them squeal? Will it do it again?


Rider

I'd take them back and get a refund.

volvite wrote:I'd take them back and get a refund.

+1
i'm not fond of surprises
stick with OEM for brake parts
at least you know what you're getting..........

eieio wrote:

volvite wrote:I'd take them back and get a refund.

+1
i'm not fond of surprises
stick with OEM for brake parts
at least you know what you're getting..........

Well... I started out with OEM pads the first time around. When I was at the dealership purchasing them, I talked to the service guy and he said "I'll be honest with you, we get ours at Napa. Save yourself some money and get them directly from there.". I was willing to pony up for the parts, it just didn't work out that way.


Rider

Rider wrote:
Well... I started out with OEM pads the first time around. When I was at the dealership purchasing them, I talked to the service guy and he said "I'll be honest with you, we get ours at Napa. Save yourself some money and get them directly from there.". I was willing to pony up for the parts, it just didn't work out that way.


Rider

is that to say that if you were to buy brake pads (or have them installed by that dealership), they would be selling you (or installing) Napa brake pads instead of OEM Nissan pads?