Dean Snow

I was driving along last night around 9:30 and I heard a clunk when I hit my brakes and they went right to the floor causing me to miss my driveway by a long shot.

I backed up and pulled it into my garage and the brakes seemed to be working fine again and I was planning on going out with friends in 35 minutes and didn't give it a good looking over like I should have. I just checked to see if a line broke and if fluid was leaking and it wasn't so I took off again.

This morning I decided to check it out after I got home and see what it was. I pulled the front drivers wheel and seen the outside brake pad was missing, and the caliper was what was stopping me. I was pretty surprised when I pulled the caliper off that it was fine and didn't wear at all but I cant say that about my rotor. It ate my rotor up pretty good. I put new brake pads on it and it seems to be fine now and the caliper wasn't broken anywhere.

Anyone ever have this happen? Any ideas on what could have caused it?

jogl

That happened to me on my GMC 7000 straight truck. The driver came home and said the brake is squealing sometimes. So next time I'm doing the daily check I look at the brake and something looks funny. Take a closer look and NO inner brake pad! I just about crapped. Don't know how that could have gotten out of there. Must have made a heck of a racket.

JP.

archer39

that is kinda scary. was everything in place like it should have been when you took it apart? Was the caliper worn at all allowing the shoe to fall out.

12valve@heart

I had to fix a Ford Ranger one time where the pad had worn down to where it fell out and the caliper piston pushed out enough that they lost the fluid. How far down were your other pads worn?

John Faughn

A couple of possibilities occurred to me , cheap parts , or over heated brakes , cooking off the glue .
You need to take a closer look at the piston on caliper , if you drove much at all , there's no way there was not some wear & tear on it , unless the brake pad backing [ metal ] did not fall out & it made contact with rotor .

keith1992

Did you do the brakes yourself or take them to a brake place? If the latter, an idiot kid installing your brakes may be the answer... thats scary. I think I'd go back to that place, make them by the parts and give them to you then do it yourself or take it somewhere else. And if they don't like that option, I think they'd come right around with the threat of a lawsuit.

Ron Barker

I did a brake job on an F250... the guy was complaining that the back brakes were making noise...

after finding that one of the pads was completely gone and it was riding the pistons on the rotor, I called him up and asked "just how long have they been making noise!?!?" LOL

Dean Snow

They were wagner brakes. The pads have 3/4 left to go

GasganoFJ60

Ive heard the inner break pad failing like that isnt all that unusual.
It also happened to me last year. I didnt hear a clunk though. From one stop the next breaking became rough and sounded bad. Sure enough the inner pad was gone, only the metal back plate and metal flakes. The outer pad was almost at 3/4 remaining pad.
Spoke to a mechanic family friend, who also has 92 LE ext cab 4x4 CTD that he drove off the showroom floor, to see if he could get me some rotors cheap and he asked me, "Was it the inner pad?" Kinda surprised I said, "yes" and he said that it does have a tendency to happen.

Guess its just one of those anomalies.
Hopefully you can just get your rotors cut instead of having to buy a whole new rotor.

jogl

If I had been the last person to work on mine I would have had some serious concerns. But it wasn't me and it was a known good mechanic in a reputable shop. When I bought that truck I took it to the shop for the safety and had them put on all new pads, calipers and flex lines. I was too busy at the time or I would have done the brakes myself. The rotors were almost brand new. The front left caliper seized up one day when I was driving so I took it to the shop and told them I want a new one on warranty (only 18,000 miles on the "new" seized one).

So they replaced it and I am sure that it was properly assembled because I always check somebody else's work on my stuff.

But 15,000 miles later the whole pad, backing plate and all was gone and the caliper was ruined.

JP.

archer39

hmm... i wonder if there is a trend in the brand of pads that have theses problems? Some of you guys that it happened to before do you know what brand pad's that had theses problems?

i know i would steer clear of the brand if maybe we could narrow it down a little.

GasganoFJ60

I wish I knew. Sorry.