Please forgive me. I have been trying to search the old threads for the info I need (and gotten distracted by things like clutch valve upgrade, bike racks, and grill mesh) for about 6 hours now. I can't find any of the answers I need. I know there are a ton of threads about brakes - I feel like I read them all but couldn't find the ones that might help.

My 2012 MT Sport has ~63k mi on it and it started making the tattletale squeaks several weeks ago. I bought the car used in 2017, from a private owner who gave me his service records - which I'm mostly confident are complete. I believe I am still driving on the original brakes. In August of 2020, the pads were measured at 5mm thickness. I have driven maybe 10k miles since then (if that!). A year later, in August 2021, I moved from flat Florida, up into the southern Appalachian mountains, and really tried to be more conscious about making the brakes last. I drive very infrequently these days (maybe 2 trips per week, 20-40 min round trip), so when I noticed the noise, I began to really adjust my following distance and use engine braking as much as possible in order to lay off the brake pedal (read: buy some time to sell some belongings to pay for the brake job). As a lovely bonus, this has also improved my gas mileage and really irritated some speeding tailgaters.

I can only afford to have the pads changed right now. If the discount brake shop tells me I have to replace the rotors, I won't know what to do. I can't jack the car up and take the wheel off to inspect the pads more closely or measure the rotors beforehand because I have a gravel driveway, and there is no street parking. I don't have an experienced eye for brakes, either.

Can I also share a little bit about what I can observe with the wheels on?

It looks like I've got maybe 2-3 mm left on the pads and I have just about worn through the tattlers. The rotors were coated with a thin to medium layer of rust since at least 2017 when I bought the car (again, Florida - by the beach), and they are now both showing a pretty fresh surface. The passenger side rotor has almost no rust on the surface at all, and the driver's side rotor has changed from rust all over to diffuse dots and speckles of rust with "new" rotor surface in between the dots. (I believe the car was parked with the drivers side facing the sea breeze for an extended period of time before I bought it.) The rotors have a vague texture but the surface is pretty smooth/slick. There are grooves, but they are very thin, short, faint, and shallow/rounded. I can drag my fingernail across them, with pressure, and it won't catch. Both rotors have raised outer edges of about 1mm in height. Maybe they will take a light resurfacing and still be in spec, I don't know! I wonder if the brake shop will let me bring in my own OEM pads in that case - most shops don't allow that, but maybe these guys because they are the cheapest in town?

I might just have to go to a Target parking lot and try to do the job (pads + rotors) myself. I haven't assisted on a brake job since I was a kid in high school and I have never done my own brake work before, but I am poor, and I did well enough bleeding brakes + clutch fluid, and changing the manual transmission fluid - all solo, so.... Maybe I save some money this way / Maybe I can't finish it in a day and my car gets towed away and I lose it forever? This is intimidating. Everyone says brakes are easy: Okay, does that hold true if you've never done them before and have no one to supervise your work? I don't have a feel for brakes like I do for tire wear - how much trouble can I get myself in with my inexperience, here? If the sea breeze rusted the rotors, am I likely to run into other rusted parts, like, say, bolts that won't come free with my Harbor Freight hand tools?

If it's best to take it to a shop, how long can I abuse my rotors like this before I damage the calipers while I try to find the money? Do pads wear even faster when they get thin, because I imagine there's less material to distribute the heat?

Lastly, I'm trying to figure out how much to order my own OEM parts. For rotors, I have 2 different part numbers: 45251-SCC-901 and 45251-TAR-G00. Which one is correct? I have no idea! How do I find out?

For pads, pffhhhshjjkgghhh, I am confused. Here's Bernardi's page for my car. The diagram has two boxes (and part numbers) drawn around the same set of parts. Do I need a pad kit, or a shim kit? Old threads talk about how convenient it is that the pads come with the shims, and vice versa. Some of the parts websites have one kit and not the other.

Can anyone jump in here with some advice? I'm know really overthinking this, like REALLY, but I am on my own here and have to borrow some of the money to make this repair. Being poor makes every decision 10x harder because there is no room for making even a small mistake.

 

Brakes aren't difficult, but they are critical to the safe operation of your car so you want to have 100% confidence that you've done the job correctly. Being able to stop is way more important than being able to go fast. So, if you aren't confident that you can do the job you probably shouldn't attempt it.

The other issue is that once you've taken things apart it's a bit of a pain if you find something broken or rusted stuck and can't complete the job. I was once stuck at home, with the car on jack stands and a broken slide pin in my hand, with no way to get to town for a replacement except for a long bike ride. Good exercise.

Do you have any friends with a bit more automotive experience (the extra set of hands can also be helpful)? Add a few Youtube videos and you should be good to go if you've helped with brakes in the past. Does your friend also have a paved driveway? I personally wouldn't be comfortable trying to work on my car in a parking lot, but I also get loud and crude when struggling with rusted fasteners and like a bit of privacy when I need to lie on the ground in despair. If I was forced to work on my car in a parking lot, I would do it at an autoparts store where you can at least get some sympathy (or maybe help from another customer).

Your description of the rotors is a bit concerning. Rotors on a parked car will get a light patina of rust from humidity, at least in the Midwest and East where I've lived. So, a bit of rust after a day or two of sitting isn't unusual and will go away after you apply the brakes once or twice. However, if you had a thick layer of rust that pitted the rotors that's not good. Using the brake pads as a sanding disc to clean the rotor was almost certainly horrible for the lifespan of the pads. The raised ridge along the edge is also not ideal. It's possible that your rotors can be machined, but for a small car like a Fit pads and rotors are pretty cheap. As for which ones to buy, I would go with the cheapest option that fits your car. If you go to the websites for Autozone, O'Reilly, CarQuest, your local dealer, etc you should be able to put in the car information and do some comparison shopping. Note that you're likely to face some stuck fasteners so if you try the job be prepared for that.

Based on your description of the rusty rotors I would want to inspect the entire system to make sure the calipers are moving freely, etc. You sort of do this as part of changing the pads and rotors, but again if it's not something you're up for then you probably shouldn't attempt it. Based on your mileage I would assume that your rear drum brake pads would be fine, but if you're doing the fronts you should inspect the rears. Again, that's easy unless the drums are stuck on by rust which seems likely.

It's unfortunate that your economic situation makes the repair difficult. If you're not comfortable with doing the repair and can't pay for a shop to do it, I would recommend at least doing a full visual (tire off) inspection of the front brakes. Here's where you could use a parking lot and the jack that came with your car. Look at the overall condition of the rotors and pads and check to see if the level of wear is the same on the inside and outside and between the driver and passenger wheels, which may not be the case if the calipers are rusted stuck. Remember that when you look at the pads you're seeing both the pad and the backing plate, so account for that when you determine how much pad you have left. Once you have a good sense of the true condition of your brakes you can better determine how to proceed.

 

I managed to get the car, floor jack, and calipers to an empty lot about a mile from home. In that one-way trip, the remaining rust on the driver's side rotor came off. The rust is very light and limited on what can be seen behind each wheel. I couldn't really mess with the calipers because I am solo here and don't know anyone to ask for help. The pads are done - probably, like, just got past 0% in the last couple drives kind of done. The "lip" on the rotor edges is less than 1mm (turns out I am a bad judge with the wheel on). And the rotors are at 21 mm each - spec is 19 mm, so *probably* enough take a light resurfacing, right? I drove home at 20 mph and managed not to make the brake lights come on even once - gotta love Sunday traffic.

I have 2 new questions now.

The shop is 8 mi away on the interstate. Surface streets are majorly stop-and-go (tourist season through downtown, etc). Do I use a free tow for this on my insurance roadside assistance coverage? Chance it on the highway? Drive it there at 4 am no-brakes-style and wait out front for them to open?

And should I be picky about pads or even order my own? I remember something about the composition of the pads and the rotor needing to match, or one will eat away at the other over time. If it's pads chewing on rotors, then it might be moot as the rotors will probably only take one sanding, and be done by the time the new set of pads wears out anyway. What I don't understand is the rate at which braking wears down the materials and I hate not knowing enough to guess!