I have a 99 F150 4X4 short bed and I've had these same brake
problems as well. I'm a machinist and turned the rotors twice
myself as precise as I could only to have them warp and the front end jump within a few thousand miles. The metal is crap and I've run into delamination as well. Excessive rust on the back side of the rotor also makes removal over the hub near impossible. I got so tired of working on them that I took it to a garage to have pads and rotors installed, something I always do myself.
Lately, I've had a brake stick and my pedal drops an inch and a half and it rebrakes on occasional stops. Scheduled an appointment with the dealer. I'm getting used to this stuff however as my last two Buicks, were always having brake problems. They either just had pads and rotors or they would need them. 80% of my driving with both vehicles is on interstate with no use of brakes required and the vehicles are garaged when not in use.
BOB

 

My original rotors warped after installing ceramic pads - see my other posts

https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...hreadid=121081


Ultratoo - Sounds like you have a bad brake booster, I saw the same problem on my mother's '92 T'Bird where the pedal would stay down or rebrake when braking sometimes and that was the fix.

HiO

 

I noticed a warp in my front brakes around 59,000 miles. I just replaced them at 64,000. The old ones were in rough shape - grooves, warped, etc. Junk! I think anyway. Under normal driving conditions (i.e. not towing or racing) pads will need eventual replacing, but rotors really should last quite a while.

 

Ford rotors suck! Nuff said. I had to replace mine at 31,000mi. Had never been turned but did not have enough metal to turn down. Dealer wante $500 to replace. Boys I think Ford has a lot of nerve asking $500 for brakes every 30Kmi. I stopped buying GM after 25 years because I was tired of replacing rotors. GM still worse though. I was turning them at 20 and replacing at 30.

 

My '98 f150 supercab 4x4 has 145K on it now. Time for the 3rd set of rotors. OEM lasted till 102K (turned at 64K and 86K), while cheapies (their regular priced ones) from Merchant's Tire needed to be turn about every 10K . Now I'm taking it next week to a diferent shop to get better rotors, Brembos or Raybestos (and of course have them check the whole braking system to make sure of no other problems). The OEM pads lasted me 64K, Merchant's whatevers actually lasted 49K, and now have ceramics with 31K on them. Yes I really do keep track of all this Sh**.
I'll reply again once I've been able to put some miliage and wear and tear on the new rotors.

Now have 167k on the truck. Replaced the cheap rotors with Brembos. Finally got tired of bouncing when stopping and took it to a small garage near home. Didn't need to turn the Brembo rotors, they just replaced the ceramic pads from Merchant's Tire (always had problems w/ them once they warmed up) with Bendix Titanium Semi-Metallics. The Bendix ones are MUCH better - noticed a difference right away. The Brembo rotors were still good (have approx 22k on them).

 

It took me 3 sets on the front before I found there was a burr on the right front caliper.It was keeping the pad from sliding back after braking.I took a file to it. So far and 40,000 miles later seams that was it.
Goodluck

 

Rotors warped at 50K, and replaced with slotted ones from Frozen Rotors if I remember correctly. I have been having problems with the left front caliper locking up at times. Looking into upgrading them and brake lines when truck gets back from Troyers.

 

I was getting that groaning sound from my F150, I had the pads replaced all around and turned rotors at 78k and that solved my problem, If I get that groaning noise again i'm replacing the brakes all around.

 

I noticed my front rotors are warped and grooved at 50K miles. I noticed alot of you guy are going to Brembos rotors. Do you know the part number for front rotors on a 2004 Ford F150 v8

 

110K on my original front brakes and rotors. Had them turned, replaced the pads. 4K miles later and still no problems.

 

Ill agree there S10's are about the worse brake life i have ever seen im not complaining about my 97 F150 but i did add ebc pads and rotors (drilled and sloted) seem to doing great on life now though

 

Looks as if you may have a problem with your proportioning valve, letting more pressure to front brakes than needed and saving rear brakes. What i did to solve my front brake problem is to buy a good set of slotted rotors and a good set of high performance brake pads and all my problems were gone. Remember you get what you pay for, so shop carefully.

 

While on the subjects of rotors..

Expy's and F-series are known for rotor seizure. So if any of you do your own brakes and cant get the rotor off, you'll have to crack it. When we get a truck that the rotors seize, we crack the rotor with a sledge and then it comes right off. Just the other night we had an Expy that we cracked the rotors off of, amazing sight, something you probably never see or think could happen

 

If the lugnuts are not properly torqued (overtorqued), this can cause rotor warping. And I know that the mechanics more than likely are just using about 150 psi of shop air and their air gun to gorilla torque your lugnuts. I have had this happen to me before. I know that some folks may not agree with me on this, but lugnuts have a torque value for a reason. I always torque everything within specs. This is probably due to me having been an aircraft mechanic for 14 years and we torque everything. Just my 2 cents...

 

OK - what is a good (non-OEM) replacement set of rotors for the F150?

What is the best bang for the buck? I do not want to spend more than needed.

btw: I've had problems with the front rotors warping and have turned them but they warped very quickly after that. ~50K on my '01 F150 4x4

The OEM rotors that came on my F150 are not nearly as thick as what i've seen on other brands of trucks of the same size.