This was performed on a 97 Altima GXE but applies to any Nissan with front and/or rear disc brakes.
Servicing the Brakes
Well I have been on a major mission doing last minute preps on my car for the winter. The other day I was hearing brake noise while driving and pinned it down to the rear drums. I cleaned and adjusted them as well as grinded down the rust ridge that formed on the outside edge of the drum...(4 wheel disc owners say "what's a drum again?"...lucky bastards!)
Today I decided to get even more out of my company by bringing my car in for a second round of brake cleanup...the front discs.
Now I know I have a little less than 50% of my front OEM pads left on the car so that wasn't what I was gonna fix. Today was cleaning the sliders and lubing the pads. I began by removing the calipers and checking the mounting sliders. Low and behold I found the lower sliders on both side of the car frozen with rust. They were so frozen I had to turn them with vise-grips to get them out. Once I got them out I removed the little dust boots only to find an absurb amount of rust underneith them. Quickly I grabbed a drill with a wire brush attachment on it and began grinding the rust off, I grinded till I saw fresh metal. Once that was done I coated the sliders with CRC Synthetic Caliper Grease and put the boots back on. From there I re-installed the sliders into the caliper mounting brackets. They move so freely now, Oh so good!!
Next I grinded the edges of the pads knocking off any debris that had attached itself to the pads. I then coated them with the same CRC grease. They moved very easily in their mounts after that. I then bolted everything back together and took a test drive...MAJOR IMPROVEMENT!!!! Not only did the stopping power feel better but acceleration felt better too, how you might ask....well the pads are no longer wedged against the rotors. Before I did this I was only using half of my calipers to apply pressure to the pads and because the sliders were frozen the calipers would not return to rest position. I was fighting my brakes for the last few months.
Now that I have done this minor fix I can feel improvements in both acceleration and braking. It cost me nothing and took a little under an hour to do.
Moral of the story...next time you check your brakes check the sliders as well. Servicing the brakes is more than just waiting for them to run out of pad, there are preventative measures you can take to gain the most out of the brakes that you can feel good about. I feel great about doing this work today and I know there is no way it can hurt the car. If only everyone took care of their cars like this, there would be no need for mechanics anymore.
Enjoy!
Servicing the Brakes
I had a similar problem as well. Whoever did the brakes before did not add lube to the sliders, eventually some of them will freeze up! My left rear squeeled at low speeds since i got the car, a month ago i went ahead and redid all my brakes and rotors (and doing it right too, new clips, sliders, and shims). While the rest of the brakes on the car had about 1/4 life left, one of the left rear brakes pads had 1mm of pad left, and it was glazed over real bad. Always add silicone based grease to the sliders when installing pads!
Any one who does brakes on their own car should own a bottle of nissan PBC grease. Yes it is expensive but if only used on your car the bottle should last the life of your car and then some. I highly recommend it for the do it yourselfers. The 3M gunk dries out after a few extreme brake applications that bring the brake temps up pretty high. But the PBC will stay in a liquid form providing much better lubrication throughout the life of the pad material. Last I checked the bottle was like $35 USD. but well worth it.