Front Brake Job - 2008 to 2011 Ford Focus

Your car’s front brakes do 90% of the work to stop your car. Do you suffer from poor stopping performance, are harsh noises coming from your wheels, or do your rims feel or smell hot after a long drive? Then you might need to maintain your front brakes.
This video shows how to inspect your front disc brakes and how to replace the most common, inexpensive parts you will encounter.
Tools:
mechanics jack (2-ton or greater)
safety jack (2-ton or greater)
12" bar clamp
1/2" impact wrench
1/2" torque wrench (working range of 20 to 100 ft-lbs) (amzn.to/3YVgk8v)
17mm wrench (as thin a wrench as possible)
14mm socket
15mm socket
21mm or 13/16" socket
possibly an M12x1.75 tap (amzn.to/3qXolNk)
Parts:
Brake pads that I wish I had bought (amzn.to/45Qruxz)
Caliper slide pin rubber parts kit (amzn.to/3syFkX2)
Torque specs:
Caliper bracket bolts - 15mm socket - 92 ft-lbs
Caliper slide bolts - 14mm socket - 21 ft-llbs
Wheel lug nuts - 21mm or 13/16" socket - 100 ft-lbs

[@jimbike8064]

So, why did the sticky pins affect the inside pad and not the outside pad? Good video.

[@reidthemanual]

Great question. I hadn’t thought about that until now.
The way the caliper works is by using its piston to first push the inside (aka, “inboard”) pad against inboard face of the rotor. The inboard pad pushing against the rotor then actually “pulls” the outside (aka, “outboard”) pad against the outboard face of the rotor.
In a new vehicle, you would probably get a little more wear on the inboard pads simply do to the fact that they touch the rotor first (and therefore more often) when you put your foot on the brake pedal. In my case, the wear was even more imbalanced because it is that inboard pad that had to do the work of sliding the outboard pads along those sticky slide pins. Just to get the outboard pad to move at all, the inboard pad would have been pressing against the rotor with the same force it took me to pull the old pins out (except both pins simultaneously)!

[@jimbike8064]

@@reidthemanual Makes sense. Thanks. :-)