Ford Explorer: Are Your Rear Brakes Dragging... Most Likely Yes!

[Mbrooks420]

I watched several videos from YouTubers with large numbers of views that said it was totally fine to spray brake pads down with wd40. It also stops them from squealing.

You should embrace the "influencers"...

YouTube is like everywhere else. Couple winners, whole lotta losers. I see no reason to spray a piss-poor lubricant on brakes.

Fix it right, or buy a less fragile vehicle.

 

[peterk9]

WD-40 isn't actually a lubricant. WD stands for Water Displacing. It's basically a solvent and rust dissolver.

Peter

 

[Mbrooks420]

WD-40 isn't actually a lubricant. WD stands for Water Displacing. It's basically a solvent and rust dissolver.

Peter

.....with an oil that gets left behind as a rust inhibitor. I’m aware it’s mostly a solvent. It doesn’t belong on your brakes.

Now, if you pulled the pads, removed All the corrosion from the pad slide surface THEN soaked it in WD40 that’d be a viable “solution”. Probably not the route I’d go, but way better than just hosing your brakes down willy-nilly.

 

[RedXLTlove]

So I finally took the wheels off and looked at the rear pads and they are both equal in wear, about 40% left on the pads. The rotors have deep grooves and look like they have been on the car for 100k miles, hence the warpage. Going to run them a bit longer till I cant take the annoyance.

The front look amazing, about 70% on the pads and the rotors look almost new.

 

[metroplex]

I've been reading the older posts in this thread... all the people that are proclaiming regular maintenance is the key are talking logically but in the 30+ years of car ownership, I've never had to break apart the calipers to perform maintenance on the sliding surfaces on a regular basis to prevent it from binding/dragging to the point that it is about to catch fire. Having to do this on the Explorer is ridiculous. My girlfriend's 2015 Malibu has over 100k miles and is driven in the winter. She has never performed any kind of maintenance on those brakes - they're all original rotors, pads, and calipers. No binding or uneven wear. Magnets don't stick to the caliper(s) so they must be either stainless or aluminum. She has a 2003 Grand Am that is kind of the same way, she had the original calipers and they were all aluminum calipers at 200k miles (she had pad changes over the years but never a problem with dragging or corroded rear brakes). I'm not saying this is necessarily the only way to go, but the Explorer requiring regular rear brake maintenance is ridiculous especially on a 2018 Explorer with under 12k miles. I'm not sure if there is a correlation between the standard duty rear brakes or the heavy-duty rear brakes, but my 2018 XLT AWD has the standard duty rear brakes if that matters.

As for the WD40, I've been regularly hosing the snot out of the rear brakes with WD40. Like spraying it on willy nilly, making sure it soaks into the pads and the rotors all over the place after each time I drive it during this quarantining. There are huge WD40 puddles on the driveway from the overspray. So far it has been working well without causing dragging or extreme heating. Stopping performance has been the same, I can't feel a difference even during repeated hard braking. Once this quarantine is over, I might take apart the rear brakes to check them out.

 

[metroplex]

Today's weather was perfect so I decided to replace all of the pads with new Akebonos.
ACT1611 for the front (FF edge code), and ACT1377B for the rear (GG edge code). It looks like my 2018 XLT uses 352mm HD front brakes and the SD rear brakes - but the rear brake pads are the same dimensions whether standard duty or heavy-duty. The heavy-duty rear brakes use vented rotors while standard-duty have solid rotors. The Motorcraft/OEM rear pads might be cut differently, but most of the aftermarket rear pads use one pad profile for both SD and HD. I believe only the base model Explorer has the standard duty Front brakes.

It's a 2018 XLT AWD with under 12k miles. The amount of rust on the rear calipers and anchor plates was astounding. It seemed almost like it had endured 10 seasons of winter driving. The OEM pads were worn out half-way through!!! There was black brake dust everywhere and some of the pads didn't want to budge from the anchor plates. The OEM pads have an EF edge code and left a LOT of black dust. I cleaned the pivot/anchor surfaces and applied anti-seize, and used silicone lube for the caliper slide pins. I also had to use the special rear piston compressor tool.

The front brakes looked much better but there was a lot of rust collecting at the lower anchor points. My calipers looked completely rusty except for the top portion. The white oxidation almost looks like aluminum oxide but the calipers and anchor plates allowed a magnet to stick. The OEM pads looked fine and barely had any wear compared to the new Akebono. It looks like the OE front pads were made by Akebono, but have a FG edge code! The dust was clay colored so I'm assuming stock was Akebono ceramic with a different pad formulation.

I went out for a test drive to get the brakes settled in, and after some stopping they felt normal. They're not worse than before, and not much better. This Explorer never gave me confident braking. I always needed some extra room to stop. But I did notice the vehicle accelerating faster. I noticed more tire wear on the rear tires, especially the right rear (which is the brake that started to heat up awhile ago).

The rear brake design is definitely problematic. There's no need for a vehicle with under 12k miles to have to get new rear pads or remove the caliper after each winter to clean the pad pivot surfaces.

 

[metroplex]

All 4 rear pads wore evenly, but were worn down about half-way. Here's a comparison with a new pad, and no that is not an optical illusion.
The original front pads were fine, about the same thickness as the new pads.

 

[Odrapnew]

Just to bump this up, I found something interesting in my rear brakes this weekend.
My wife has been driving my Sport for the last 5 months and last week she said the brakes were squeaking last week.
I replaced the rear pads/rotors around 70k miles and it's now approaching 100k, so about 30k miles on them.
I was a bit worried the pads were going to be toast, but they still looked fine.

I knew about this thread and the corrosion buildup, so that's what I planned to tackle along with re-greasing the caliper pins.

Passenger side went fine. Cleaned the corrosion behind the clips in the bracket. The caliper pins felt smooth before and after I re-greased them. Pads were now sliding smoothly in the clips again.

Driver's side was a little different. One of the caliper pins was not sliding at all. I could spin it, but it would not slide out. I grabbed a pliers and pulled (with a lot of force) and eventually (slowly) got the pin to come out. One pin in each caliper bracket has a small rubber bushing on the shaft that I think is there for noise (just a guess). I cleaned everything, re-greased and still could not get that pin back in. I tried the other pin and no issues in either position. I could also install the pin without the bushing.

Well, that bushing on the driver's side seemed to be slightly swelled on one end. It wasn't much, but just enough to cause excessive interference. I thought about assembling it together without that bushing, but figured that wasn't a good idea. I was concerned that it would be a part only from dealership (and being a Sunday, they are closed), but luckily my auto parts store had a kit with the rubber boots as well as the bushing for $5. They also had replacement pins for about $15, but the pictures didn't show the bushing, so I was worried I'd still be missing that part.

I brought the bracket and pin with me to check fit before I left the store and sure enough, the new bushing fit and slid in without issue.

Here's the kit I bought. The picture is bad, but it's the 2 smaller bushings that are on the pins. I only replaced the bushing on the driver's side since the other side with fine and already back together.

https://www.autozone.com/brakes-and...t-rear/duralast-pin-boot-kit-16207/690709_0_0

And for reference, here's the caliper pins, which you can see one of the pins has a step down near the end where the bushing goes.
https://www.autozone.com/brakes-and-traction-control/brake-caliper-bolt-guide-pin-rear


Now, I'm not sure why that bushing was swelled up, but I guess fingers crossed it doesn't do it again.
Maybe it was the lube I used last time (I don't remember what I used). The old lube was still present and not dried up, so not sure what happened. This time I used the Sil-Glyde silicone brake lubricant.

Anyway, thanks for reading and hopefully this helps someone if the run into this in the future.