Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Brakes on SVT

How long should the brakes last on a SVT Contour. I have 25000 miles on my 99 SVT and some times the brakes make a grinding noise. Also when I reverse and lightly touch the brakes the car makes a loud grinding noise. Any advice would be great. Thanks, Dave.

How long brakes last depends on your driving style. If yours are making noises, you should check them out. You'll have to pull the wheels off and look at the thickness of the actual brake pad lining material. If the noise is coming from the brakes, you'll probably see evidence of it on the rotors by way of a gouge or some other roughness on their normally smooth surface. By the way, noises generally are not good and there's two trains of thought on how to deal with them: check them out when you first hear them or wait until something breaks and fix it then. Only problem with the second method is it generally costs more to fix by then.

Karl

thanks for that advice. I recently broke a stud on my rear right tire because whoever pulled off the tires the last time overtorqued the lugs. So while trying to take it off bam the stud broke. So, now i need to take off the drum, plus the rear brakes make a squeeking noise when they are cold.. other than that they dont make any noise. Does anyone know how to take the rear drum off?

give it a hard hit with a hammer between the studs. it isn't coming off because rust bound together the drum and the (forgot the english word ) thingy it is put on.
after that it should slide off pretty easy.

Tiv