How to Replace Front Brakes 2004-08 Chevy Malibu

Brought to you by 1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Hi, I'm Mike Green. I'm one of the owners of 1A Auto. I want to help you save time and money repairing or maintaining your vehicle. I'm going to use my 20 plus years experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1AAuto.com. The right parts installed correctly, that's going to save you time and money. Thank you and enjoy the video.

In this video, we're going to show you how to replace the front breaks on this 2006 Malibu. Procedures are the same for a few other GM Vehicles as well, the Malibu's, G5, Cobalt, HHR, Solstice and Saturn Sky as well as others. Tools you'll need are jack and jack stands, 14, 15, and 19mm sockets and that could vary by car. Ratchet with a pipe or breaker bar for some extra leverage, a flat blade screw driver, a large C-clamp, wire brush and a torque wrench. Start out by using a 19mm socket or wrench and loosen the plastic covers and then remove the wheel cover. If you don't have the benefit of air tools, you want to loosen the lug nuts up while it's on the ground then raise and support your vehicle and then remove the lug nuts on the wheel. Grab hold of the steering knuckle and turn it to make it easier to reach the back of the caliper. Now, we want to inspect the condition of the breaks. The rotors are a little crusty. As far as rust, that's not always a bad thing. You want to just take your finger and run up and down the surface of the rotor. I can feel some pretty big ridges here on the edges which indicates that this may be worn down. Also, our pads, it's hard to see but if we look in here, there's very little pad life left. You can actually tell here better. This is the metal or the pad. It's almost right up against the rotor, so this needs new front brakes. First thing we're going to do is remove these two bolts here. These two bolts are 14mm and they should come off pretty easy. I'm just going to speed it up as I remove those two bolts.

Now, this should come off, but it's pretty easy on the ridges here. What you want to do is take a good size screw driver and try out with this hold and that loosens up the caliper and the caliper comes right off, put it right there for an hour and you can just try out your pads. As you can see, here's my pad, they actually is a little wear indicator. It says there's a little bit of life left, but I'd feel better replacing these. Here's my inner pad as well. Now, we need to remove this caliper bracket. We'll remove two 15mm bolts here and here. These are going to be somewhat tighter so I'm going to use my ratchet. If you have a breaker bar, that's the best thing or use a piece of pipe, put it on your ratchet, little extra leverage and it should be apart pretty easily. We'll pop one get it started. And I'm just going to speed it up again here as I remove those bolts. I found that once I turned them, probably three or four turns, they actually came out by hand. Take the rotor, pull it right off. New rotor from 1A Auto. Put it on, take a lug nut. Kind of hold it into place here. We'll cut this off. Now, I have to reset. This piston is working its way out of the caliper, so I'm just going to take my old pad like that and take a big C-clamp and make sure we're not pressing anything lighter on the back there. I'm taking up the C-clamp, the piston goes back in to the caliper. This rubber seal kind of pops out and you just work it right back in there with your fingers. Before we put this caliper bracket, two things, I want to make sure these are sliding in and out nice and freely. Then you also want to take a wire brush and just clean out these stainless steel slide. Now, take your bracket and it goes basically between the knuckle and the disk. Put your bolt in, it will find its way. This bolt, you want to tighten up to 85 foot pounds.

New pads from 1A Auto, quite a bit thicker than what we took off there and the rear one has this rear tab. You want to make sure that's on the upside, so put that one in the back. That little tab is what makes that constant squeaking noise as your breaks wear down when they get low. Put this one up front. You want to make sure that your slides are pushed in here. Bring your caliper down right on top. Two bolts. These two bolts, you want to take into 35 foot pounds. We have the wheel back in place, then you put the lug nuts on by hand and then I'm just using my impact wrench to just tighten them up preliminary. Now with the vehicle on the ground, torque the lug nuts to 100 pounds using a star pattern. Now, put your wheel cover back on. There is a hole for the valve stem, then use a socket to tighten up the retainers. Last but certainly not the least, before you drive your vehicle, make sure you pump the breaks a bunch of times to get the pedal to feel nice and firm. You have to reset those caliper pistons, then do stops from five and ten miles an hour before you road test the vehicle.

We hope this helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Please feel free to call us toll free, 888-844-3393. We're the company that's here for you on the Internet and in person.