After rotating my tires today, I found out that I am going to have to do a front brake job on my 4runner. Each rotor had one or two shallow grooves on the braking surface and the pads were fairly thin, but the truck has never shuddered or had steering wheel shimmy under braking. I am going to have the rotors resurfaced at a local shop that has an on-vehicle brake lathe, but I just needed to know if I should put the new pads on before or after the resurfacing. I'm thinking before, but I just wanted to find out for sure. And thanks in advance!

 

Why would you want to put your new pads on grooved rotors and get nice grooves in your new pads? You might can buy new rotors for what it costs to turn them. Check into it.

 

Because I was going to put the pads on the same day I was going to do the resurfacing. Its not like I was going to drive around for a month and then resurface the rotors. And besides, It was going to only run me between 40 to 50 dollars to resurface both rotors

 

Put the new pads on AFTER you get "new" rotors. You can buy new rotors for $40 to $50 locally I bet.

 

I just put new rotors on my '94 for 60 bucks. Thats the route I'd go. I've seen too many turned rotors warp not long after..

 

I thought about that, but won't my worn pads re-groove my freshly resurfaced rotors?

I thought about that too, but don't I need to remove my wheel bearings to remove my rotors? Or was that to remove the cv's.........I forget . And I don't exactly have my manual in front of me to check on that, but I'm pretty sure it was to remove the............cv's?

 

No need to remove cv axles. Plus its a good time to inspect and repack the bearings! Its a time consumer any way you look at it!

 

Hmmm, thanks but if I have to remove the bearings I'd rather just resurface the rotors. Bearings are not something I feel comfortable messing with

 

Its super easy. Its just the outer bearings/races that you need to monkey with. All I did was make sure they were in operational shape, added a little grease and reassembled. Its nothing in the scheme of things.

 

But what about preload? Or is that only with new bearings?

 

I hereby make no guarantees on bearing preload...but IMO, its not that big of deal. I have never had any problems with any of my toyotas wheel bearings. Just my experience!

 

AH HA! Then I will resurface. Also, I know my bearing are in good shape so why mess with a good thing ? Thanks for all the help though. If I didn't have to remove the wheel bearings I would just replace the rotors, but they are still in very good shape short of one or two shallow grooves

 

Anyone have an answer for this?

 

wait a second...you have to deal with the bearings anyway as part of swapping the rotors.. You need to unbolt them from the hub to have them resurfaced anyway

 

No some shops have a fancy device they hook up and can turn them on the vehicle.

At least the ford dealership did when I took the bosses f-250 in.

 

First post

 

Why not take the new pads with you to the shop then while the rotor is being surfaced, you can swap out the pads.

 

I thought about that too, but I doubt that they would let me

 

In the time it takes you to get home from the shop, no damage will be done to your new rotos by leaving the old pads in. Old rotors do MUCH more damage to new pads~

 

Well today I was just considering just doing what everyone is telling me to do and just swap out both the rotors and pads. I called again to the shop that was going to do the resurfacing, and the resurfacing price magically jumped from around 40 dollars to 80 dollars ! Screw that! I'll post up some pics of the rotors sometime tomorrow and see what you guys think of them. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll be ok enough to not resurface