2003 Monte Carlo SS. Why would my car be wearing out the driver side front and the passenger side is not hardly worn? I am a shade tree mechanic and need some input. I am thinking maybe air is in the passenger side?

 

Does the car pull to the driver's side when you step on the breaks?

 

Nevermind

 

Could have a slide pin that isn't greased properly and making the pad contact all the time. Could be a caliper sticking. To me it sounds like the pads are just staying in contact no matter what. How does freely spinning the wheels while up in the air feel?

 

I was tired yesterday when I posted this question.
I had the car diagnosed at the Chevrolet dealership here and was told that the antilock module is bad. I believe that is going to be my problem. The car has 188,000 miles on it and it’s a rebuilt titled car that I paid $1,500.00 dollars for. I don’t see any reason to spend more to repair it than what I paid for it. It still gets 29 miles to the gallon and stops well enough. I put new pads and rotor on the driver side yesterday because I had looked at the driver side and realized it was time for new pads. I had bought a set of pads and rotors so now I have a spare for when the driver side wears out again. I had thought that I would try to keep it up because it gets such good gas mileage and fits my size well, but recently I have found out that there’s parts for these cars that are not available anywhere no longer besides the junk yards. The short version of this story is that since some parts are not available anymore I will keep driving it and hope it makes it to my retirement. It’s a work car that I drive 100 miles a day to work and I only need 100,000 more miles it will make it with out me spending to much on it. I am still open to suggestions but really got discouraged recently when I found out that there’s parts that you can’t get new any longer already.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions and I might try replacing the passenger side caliber or just lubing the slides later after Thanksgiving.

Wishing all a wonderful Thanksgiving.

 

So, I am a bit of a skeptic about the ABS module. Those RARELY fail plus the car has so many diagnostics, the car should have a ABS code present if the module has any issues. Plus, this means the module is attempting to pulse the one wheel (you should hear the ABS module activating AND feel it). If it is really the module, grab a cheap salvage one and slap it in (I think my Pull-A-Part charges like $20ish for one). I suspect it is more likely the suggestions given (problem with a slide pin OR a hung caliper) OR I have even seen a failed caliper flew hose (collapsed on the inside, does not allow the caliper to work properly, good way to prove that is try bleeding the caliper and spinning the wheel). I have also seen a piston on a caliper get stuck at an angle and be hung up.

 

This just happened to me. I broke two caliper tools on my wife's firebird the other day before I figured it out.

 

I think that I will replace the brake caliber on the passenger side. It’s pretty obvious that the driver side is working. I will do some more work on it next weekend. If I grease the slides won’t that cause the slides to stick? I do live on a dirt road.

The abs being bad shouldn’t do anything but make the brakes lock up if I hit the brakes hard correct?

 

Hello everyone update,

I changed the driver side rotor and pads the other day and the passenger side was hardly worn. I finally had time to drive the car today and see what it felt like. I can be driving the speed limit and let go of the steering wheel and it slowly drifts to the right. The roads in Florida are slopped too the right as most roads are so I would expect it to slowly drift to the right. I get up to speed and hit the brakes and the car doesn’t really pull much either way, it just stops. I don’t think that the driver side is sticking closed because the car gets 29 miles to the gallon of combined highway and city driving, what am I missing?

Thanks in advance for any help and I hope all had a great Thanksgiving.

Mike