Tips on Changing Your Brake Pads

The brake pads on your vehicle will inevitably need to be replaced. But you don't need to spend a lot of money on a professional mechanic. There are a couple different types of brakes your car might have. In fact, some cars have disc brakes in the front and drum brakes in the back. A disk break is a rotor with a pads crushing in on the rotor, where as a drum brake is a drum that has pads that squeeze outward on the inside of the drum. Changing your brakes yourself will save you money and can usually be done at home very simply.

The first thing you will want to do before you begin to replace your brakes is get everything you will need gathered before you. This would include a repair manual that is specifically designed for your vehicle. Remember you should always have jack stands when you are working on your car because a jack can fail and all on top of you. When you are working with automobiles you should always remember that it is better to be safe then sorry.

Take a good care when you are jacking your car up. Refer to the repair manual to make sure that you have your jack in a good sturdy place. Remember to loosen the lug nuts before you jack the car up, because it is impossible to do it when the car is in the air. DO not loosen the lug nuts to much because it might do damage to the wheel if you accidentally loosen it to much. You do not need to jack up the car very much, just enough to take off the tire. Now that the car is up, put your jack stands underneath the sturdy beam. Be careful not to pinch any hoses or wires because you can do a lot of damage in a little amount of time that way.

Now that the car is up in the air take the lug nuts off the rest of the way and put the tire aside. Now check to see that the break parts you have are correct. If there seems to be something amiss, such as the rotor is a different side or the pads have an extra wire or hook like thing on them, you probably have the wrong kind of pads. They are probably for a different model or year so go to your local auto parts store and exchange them.