How to change the brakes on a car
Leslie Jenkins
DeVry University
Professor Hatcher

March 11, 2011

How to change the brakes on a car Most people think it is a very tough job to change the brakes on a car. Those people take it to a garage and spend a lot of money in parts and labor to have the job done. Usually it cost anywhere from $90.00 to $215.00 per axle at the garage, per axle means both wheels on the front or rear of the car. By doing the work yourself you could save a lot of money, the only cost is in the parts. The average cost is from $30.00 to $60.00 per axle. Let’s discuss the procedure to change your own brakes.
First thing you must do is go to a local car parts store and purchase the correct brake pads for your car. Once you have the brake pads you now can start the remaining process. The next step is to locate a flat, level area to park the car so when you start to jack the car up, it will not roll off the jack. Once you have located the area. To prevent rolling, you need to “chalk” the wheels. This means to put a brick or a large block of wood behind the back tires or front tires depending on which part of the car you need to change the brakes on.
Before we can even start to jack up the car we need to loosen the wheel lug nuts. Use a tool called an impact wrench or a breaker bar to loosen the lug nuts. We do not want to remove the lug nuts completely from the car until it is off the ground. If we remove the lug nuts now and start to jack up the car the wheels can fall off and do some damage to you or the car. Once the lug nuts are loosened we now can have the car jacked up. To do this we need to locate the jack so that no damage will be done to the car. There are several areas that are designated as lift areas or lift points. The area is located a few inches back from where the fender touches the bottom of the car which is near the front or rear doors. Now that the jack is properly located, we can now raise the car up. Once the car is up off the ground we can remove the lug nuts and the wheel itself. With the wheel off the car, we need to locate the brake pads. They are located inside a device called a caliper; it looks like a letter C but upside down. There are two bolts that hold the caliper on the car. They are located in the back of the caliper. Once they are removed we can take the caliper off of the rotor. The brake pads are held in with several heavy duty clips. You just need to push the clips away from the caliper and the pads can be removed.
Once the pads are removed we can see that a piston is protruding out of the caliper. That piston needs to be pushed back in the caliper. The reason is that the pads that were on the car have worn down and have less material. We have to make more room for the new pads. To push the piston back into the caliper we need to use a C-clamp. The first thing we have to do is open the hood of your car and locate the master cylinder for the brake system and remove the lid. This will help relieve the system so it will have room for the brake fluid to be pushed back into the cylinder. All you need to do is open the clamp and place the clamp over the caliper where the bar of the clamp is touching the piston and then tighten the clamp.
When this is completed, we have to put the new pads into the caliper. To do this all you need to use is the new clips that come with the pads and insert them the same way the old ones were before they were taken out. Once they are inserted, we can install the caliper back the same way it came off, and tighten the bolts. Now you can install the wheel back on the car and tighten the lugs nuts. Now that you have completed one side of the car, you now can complete the opposite side in the same manner. The front and rear of the car are done doing the same procedure.