I went riding on Monday with my son (Jeep Cherokee), a new friend (Nissan Safari), and two old friends (Nissan Xterra). We started at Sheep Wallow Rd., but bailed on it because of incoming rain. We ended up trying a nearby Forest Service road, which turned out to be basically a gravel road through the woods. The constant fog and drizzle didn't add to our day either. Since Monday was such a bust, Robbie (Xterra) and I decided to try again on Wednesday. We had better weather, and a better time at Lake Russell WMA.
During Monday's ride I thought I was hearing a little noise when braking; on Wednesday's ride it was obvious. The source seemed to be the passenger side rear wheel. When we got back to Robbie's house that evening we pulled the tire to see if we needed to go ahead and change the brake pads. We didn't even look at the pads because the rotor was so grooved it was going to have to be replaced.
After watching a couple of Youtube videos, getting a phone estimate from the Pep Boys were my son used to work, and pricing the parts with my Speed Perks 22% discount from Advance Auto Parts, I decided to go ahead and replace both back rotors and pads myself. And when I say "myself" I mean that my son would do most of the work while I assisted.
I'd had my front brakes worked on at the end of January/first of February of this year. At that time the mechanic wrote on my service report that the back brakes were good for an additional 20-25K miles. Apparently he only looked at the driver rear wheel. They (driver's back rotor and pads) were OK; but, after less than 10k miles, the passenger rear pads were basically down to the metal and digging into the rotor. I also got new tires installed in October and they didn't mention anything about the brakes either.
My son and I did the work today in the driveway. It was 40ish, I guess, and for at least an hour of the time, we worked in a light rain. By his own admission, my son had done 1-1/2 brake pad replacement jobs before today. I'd never worked on my brakes before at all. As is typical (for me anyway), the first rotor and pad replacement took twice, maybe three times, as long as the second one did, as we figured out what we were doing. And the driver's side would have taken even less time if one of lug nuts hadn't been cross-threaded which resulted in the lug stud breaking (note to self - talk with tire people about replacing stud).