1970judge

1) I work at AAP, and sell these daily, so I can shed some light. 2) These are about the worst thread responses I have seen on this forum, and it is full of them, even if you put "with all due respect" in front of it. We all know what you're thinking.

Those metal clips are wear sensor, "squeelers" if you will. When you remove the brake caliper you will see them, take the old ones out, and install the new ones. Don't be shy about working on your own brakes. I've worked on cars for a long time, I don't anymore, but when I did, brakes were one of the easiest things to do. I've done it on the side of the road, quickly before.

Here is a video, he doesn't swap the squeelers though-
Watch that video, when he removes the brake pads, the clips are located on the upper and lower portion of the bracket.

Edit: Also, 500$, your mechanic is taking you for a ride. Front brake changes usually run an hour labor, ~80$-100$/hr. Even with a good markup it should only run around 250-300$ depending on rotor change or surfacing(which I DO NOT recommend, alway buy new rotors/pads).

redridehhr

OOPS! On my earlier post I mistakenly called the abutment clips shims. Shims mount to back of pad to reduce squeal. Think twice,speak once.

redridehhr

Please correct me if I'm wrong,just trying to learn. 1970 said the clips on the upper and lower caliper bracket were squeelers. Aren't the abutment clips there to hold the pads in place with some tension to reduce clatter and a smoother sliding surface? I just put new pads on from Napa and they came with small(1" or so)clips that clipped on the pads themselves.The take offs had these also. I thought these were the squeelers because the way they are set up, they would start hitting the rotor at about 1/4" remaining on pad. Just trying to get it right so I don't have to go back and correct another post.

cri

If you jack up your vehicle to work on it , if you plan to work under or work with the wheel off etc. please use safety stands or blocks strong enough to catch the vehicle if it falls. I had to mention this as I noticed a post with someone telling a new learner to jack and remove wheels and didn't mention safety. I don't mean to be pushy but if I didn't say something and someone got hurt I would feel some responsibility. Thank You

blacky

When you get some time, I am curious as to the relative wear on inboard v. outboard pads. The inboard pads normally wear faster than outboards, and that's why wear indicator clips (squealers) go on inboards. The effect was extreme on our HHR.

Last summer we had a very unforgiving experience with front brake pads. No warning, just the grinding noise of backing plate and disintegrating friction material on driver side inboard pad - tons of wear left on outboard. Squealer broken on I think driver side, and no clip on passenger side (I don't think there was even a mark showing the past existence of a clip, suggesting none was installed at factory). Driver and passenger sides were remarkably similar in wear, as within maybe 200 mi the passenger side inboard was similarly on backing plate.

One lesson is that you can't depend on squealers. A second is that inspecting the thickness of the inboard pads is critical. My recollection is that I took a cursory look at outboards, which had tons of wear remaining, and did not apprehend the extreme wear on inboards - a much greater difference than on my previous cars.

By the way, somebody mentioned safety. For this job I slid the removed wheel under the car, just aft of the wheel well, for a failsafe - lowering car with jack to just above wheel. Chocking diagonal wheel both for and aft is a must. I find this method more secure than jack stands, and you don't have to worry about precise positioning of a jack stand (jack stands were much simpler to use when cars had a real frame).