2004 f150, 6 mos. old with 20k miles, 90% highway.





I took it in to get the front and the backs replaced, because I thought there was excessive groving, not to mention the squeal. The rears were worse than the fronts, so they turned those. But they told me that the fronts were fine and that it was normal, even after I pointed out the smooth rotors on all of the other cars nearby. The service manager told me he was even sitting on the fence about doing anything to the rears, and tried to make me feel lucky he did those

What do you guys think? I know that even after the rotors warped on my 99' f150 after 120k miles, they were still smooth.

 

They look fine. As long as they don't warp you're ok. The down side is they most likely won't see a long life, and you will want to replace the rotors when you get the brakes done. Turning the rotors will definately shorten the life of them and the pads.

I have two friends at work who drive an F-150. One is a lady who likes to tailgate. She had here brakes done at 30k. The other is a man who drives 40 miles to work, and claims his truck has a coast pedal. He'll probably get 70k out of them.

Take the wheels off and spray some brake cleaner on the rotors and pads to clean off that brake dust. Don't touch the rotor because there is oil on your finger.

 

Some rotor “grooving” is normal and when take into account the size/weight of an F150 and the aggressive pad material that these trucks come with (note lots of brake dust, i.e. pad and rotor material) this will happen. The Ford F150 come with semi-metallic pads, if you re-do your brakes put on a set of ceramic pads and you will see major improvements in; pad life, rotor wear, brake dust and noise.

 

I would turn them or replace them. You cannot expect new pads to bed correctly on grooved rotors. You will have poor performance until the two parts wear to each other. Less contact surface equals less braking power.

 

If I bought some ceramics, would they even out the grooves on the rotors or the opposite? Or might I have an even better chance of warping them or something?

 

You always want to turn the rotors when you do a brake job, that should be a given, you must start with 2 smooth surfaces otherwise they won't contact properly and you'll ruin the new pads and hardly have any brakes!

I just though of something else, what is the build date on your truck? Ford changed the pads mid year, same aggressive material but they added these little spring to help keep the pad chewing up the rotors while driving, the material is so harsh it just continues to eat away at the rotors while driving down the freeway. This must have been the exact reason they added those springs!

Ceramic pads will cure your ills, they won't warp your rotors, that’s a big myth, pedal pulsation is cause by uneven brake lining transfer and/or DTV (disc thickness variation) which is caused by semi-metallic pads.

 

Date on the door says 04/03

I think ill just be better off wearing these down while saving for some new aftermarket rotors and ceramic pads.

thanks for the help

 

I noticed the same type of wear on my rotors with only 3000 mi. The dealer told me that there is a tech bulletin covering this issue - something to do with brake chatter. They had me schedule an appointment to have the rotors replaced - no charge. The manufacture date on my truck is 06/04.