Caliper fell apart?!

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Larry Phillips

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OK, so I had this noise coming from my left front wheel before I left. I crawled up under and checked all I could but I didn't have time to take the wheel off. Sounded like an intermittant scraping noise, metal on metal. I get this text message from my mom who drove Jade back to Missouri on Sunday, and started Jade's maintenance refit on Monday saying that she no more than took off the wheel, and the caliper fell off. Come to find out, the cast section of the caliper cracked down the middle, and the only thing holding it together/on was the two pins.

I wish I had a picture, so I could see it, but that's what she described. Weird, huh? :unsure: :wacko:

But she's already replaced both front calipers, and soon the back brakes will be retrofitted with discs.
 
All that power braking,,, ARGH ARGH!!!!!!

Todd Z
 
Never saw one of those on a road driven vehicle. Glad you didn't need that brake in any emergency.



Don't laugh, his mom already has 180 points and is fifth in this years driver competition.:D:D:D:D
 
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Your mom is jeff gordon?!.... hehehe... I know gordons girly but come on.....hehehhe



Dallas



Disclaimer: This post was made as a joke, please do not take offence to it. If you take offence to it then GET A SENSE OF HUMOUR!!
 
That's just down right dangerous. Damn good thing it was replaced when it was. This incident would scare me away from driving the vehicle anymore, even with new calipers, espically if they were replaced with Ford parts.
 
Tiger, the failure was highly unusual. The casting probably had a defect which could have happened to any manufacturer. My case in point; have you ever heard of this happening to any other rotor foreign or domestic or on any other FORD? Come on guys let's not make a blanket statement about Ford parts. It is statements like this that make people pay more for a MATRIX than a VIBE even though they are the same car.
 
The only time I have ever seen something similar was when the caliper mounting bolts were not tightened properly. One of the bolts was missing and the other was so loose it could be unscrewed with your fingers. That caused the caliper to bounce around between the inside of the wheel and the rotor.



Larry, Have you had any brake work done on your ST lately? If so, I think somebody did not put things back correctly.



...Rich



 
She thought it was a casting defect as well. The only brake work that's been done recently was when I put new front pads on last spring. Everything looked fine then, and I know I put it back together correctly. I really wished she would've taken a picture of it.



So that's why my dad loves Jeff Gordon so much! :lol:
 
MikeC-

Take your chances if you wish. It doesn't matter WHAT I'm driving, Ford, Chevy, MB, BMW, etc; if the caliper falls apart I'm not willing to risk the saftey of myself, or those who ride with/around me on getting a part from the same defective batch. Does Ford stress test these items? Does anyone? Chances are not. The only way to find these problems is to wait until they happen to someone on the road. Car makers know this, and that is a risk they are willing to take.



You know, it's funny, someone makes a post about something very insignificant being wrong and people jump on the band wagon and claim Ford makes cheap vehicles and how they suck, but when major stuff goes wrong, it's a fluke and it's somehow 'OK'.
 
Tiger,

Ford nor does any other manufacturer have time to stress test every component of every vehicle. Some defects don't show up for many miles or until some abnormal conditions are just right.



Worked for a Colonel who had a year old Caddilac. He was driving home one day and as he turned the corner the spindle snapped and the wheel assembly kept going and the car fell down on it's suspension. He was fortunate that he was in a residental are and was only going about 20-25 MPH and even slowere when he started to turn the corner.



I also iknow of another Colonel in Germany who bought a brand new Mercedes and it failed the safety inspection because one of the shocks was bad! Yes, he was very pissed.



...Rich

 
I know, and that's my point. There is no way an auto maker can test a vehicle for everythign or circumstance, they have to release the vehicles and let the consumer do the final stress tests. In this case, a caliper failed. Manucafturing defects just don't happen, they are from poor/worn out molds, wrong metal concentrations, whatever. That caliper isn't the only one out there that has this defect.



A modern vehicle is very safe and won't have a major failure like the cars of yore. But when they do happen, they tend to be more dramatic. These failures can and will happen to nearly every auto maker, some are excusable, but brakes that simply fall apart? That worries me.



German car regulations are very strict, I don't find it surprising at all that a brand new MB failed. I'd be surprised to see how many non-German cars would be able to pass, my money would be on not many.
 
Wow glad your mom caught that before hand. And I see that not only does Jade rock but

so does your Mom! Too Cool! :cool::D:)



jeff gordon, though? I'm sorry :lol:

 
Just couldn't handle the speed tests, I guess...



I thought this was kindof an odd piece to break, but this happened to one of the leaf springs on my dad's Bronco II. It cracked at one of the mounting points.



I love having my mom do the maintenance refits. Good labor prices, and dependable service, and it gives her something to do. I'm pretty much getting a new ST when I get back. Unfortunately, my dad drove her, and now wants to buy her from me, and have me buy a new '07. Yet, he doesn't want to buy his own, he only wants Jade. I'm not as ready for a new ST just yet since the Adrenalin was canned. Although, that does put me to the challenge of building my own.

NX-07?
 
tiger, yes a manufacturer can do destructive and life testing on components. He can pedigree and document all metallurgical steps in the casting and machining of the calipers. Each caliper can be identified as to the batch raw material sources and groupings, the furnace the allow was smelted in, the casting number date and environmental conditions that each caliper was produced under. That way if a caliper was found defective all calipers sharing the same batch number as to processes or material source could be identified as to which vehicles contained parts from that lot. The space program and military programs perform this stringent traceability program. Ever hear of the $200 hammer? That is why the cost what they cost. I don't think you want to pay $2000.00 for your calipers.



They do not use the consumer to perform the final stress test as you imply. Yes, the consumer is the end user but many safe guards and checks are ferformed on the componnents used. They a randomly lot sampled, etc. What would be the purpose of the manufacturer having the consumer do the stree test. The part when it fails is ALREADY in the consumers hand. What would be the manufacture's purpose in doing this since product reliability and satisfaction reputation is what he is trying to achieve in the market place?



Since you do not ANY pedigree of the testing and condition of ANY replacement caliper, regardless of manufacturer, are you suggesting to scrap the Trac since any new caliper would be suspect regardless of source?
 
I do Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) on various things. Most of the time, a lot sample is taken to be inspected. Usually, with a new casting method or design, 100% are inspected. If no problems are found, then they might drop it to 25%. If no problem continue, then it might drop to 10%. Once one is found to be bad, the whole lot might be inspected, or there will pull 25% out of the box and inspect those. if none of those fail, then it was a fluke.



I have been doing NDT for 11 years.





Tom





 
This is an example of why castings are not used for structural aircraft parts. Forgings are the requirement. Castings are used in airplanes for a variety of applications, just not in critical structural areas. Castings can have flaws that cannot be detected by any reasonable means. Flaws that, over time, turn into a crack and finally failure. These flaws are at the molecular level and can be things such as inclusions, metal crystals, hard/soft spots. Such failures are rare, but do happen. Won't take that chance on an airplane landing gear component.
 
MikeC-

No, I wouldn't want to pay $2000 for a set of calipers...and neither does Ford, that's why they don't do the tests. I don't disagree that they could, but they don't. They'll take random samples, but each part isn't tested...and realistically, they couldn't be.



Consumers ARE the final testers for any vehicle. No manufacturer can duplicate every instance a vehicle will be put through on the road, so they preform a reasonable amount of tests on test vehicles to make sure that under most normal use, the vehicle will preform as expected; and be safe. I'm not stating an opionon, I'm stating fact. Do a little research and you'll find this to be true.



Afterall, why would there be a need for TSBs, recalls and such if a vehicle has been fully tested by the car maker? Maybe you're too new to the ST world to know this, but Job 1 2001 STs, espically early ones, had a fuel door that would rub on the fender when opened, eventually rubbing through the paint. The fix was a new hinge. Why would Ford put a product out like this? They didn't know of the problem until the consumer found it. Consumers do the final tests.



I'm not suggesting getting rid of the Trac, but I certinaly would be leary of going back with Ford calipers (read: cheap calipers). I'd opt for an aftermarket set from a reputable company. When you deal with a huge coporation that deals with contractors who have the lowest bid, you're bound to have a few parts that aren't as good as they could be...this is when aftermarket is so good; a company can specialize in specific types of parts, and make fewer numbers, and quality is normally a lot higher.



I'm no fool, mass produced vehicles are simply a collection of parts that were built as cheaply as possible...at least vehicles in this price bracket (and by all of the Big Three, no matter the car). Usually the result is a good vehicle that will last for a while given proper upkeep, but every now and then, you get some bad parts or a bad vehicle. I'm just a big fan of the aftermarket, better parts that preform better.
 
Tiger, a 2003 Trac has 16 TSB's the 2003 Honda Accord has ~143 TSB's. Does that mean that Honda tests less than Ford? What were the Honda Engineers doing that year...sleeping?
 
Like I said, in this price bracket.



When you start talking about Ferrari's or Rolls, then you're talking about a whole different breed of car...cars that are primarily hand built and where quality takes precedence of price.
 
My point was that I assume you can't trust any OEM parts. I don't know the reliability of Ferrari since I assume most are VERY LOW mileage vehicles with replace ratther than service is probaly a motto.
 

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