2009 Pontiac Vibe L4 1.8L Front Ceramic Brake Pad & Rotor Kit TRQ BKA11237

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

To remove the hub cap, these are actually not the lug nuts, they're little plastic covers that are threaded onto lug nuts. We're going to take a 21mm socket and they should thread off by hand. Just kind of unscrew them. They won't unscrew from the plastic hub cap, but you just go along and take them all out. Once they're loose, the hub cap should come right off. Use the 21mm socket and the breaker bar while the car is still on the ground to loosen the lug nuts. Don't have remove them all the way, just loosen them up.

We're going to raise and support the vehicle. You can use the axle stands and a floor jack. We're going to use our two post lift. So, these lug nuts are loose. I'm just going to use the socket to finish taking them off. Before I go to remove the caliper, to make it easier, I'm going to grab on it and pull it outwards and try to compress it a bit. This way when I loosen it up, it will slide right off of the brake pads. I'm going to remove the two caliper slide bolts. They're 14mm.

Going to put a 14mm box wrench on there and loosen them up. If they're really hard to turn, you can use the dead blow on that instead of your hand. Get the other one loosened up. Before we pull this caliper off of here, you want to have a bungee cord or a stiff wire handy. That way you can hang the caliper. You don't want to let it hand by the rubber hose because you can damage it. So, let's get that. Pull the old brake pads out. Just got to work them out of the clips. These are coming out pretty easily. If they're really jammed in there, you can use a small pry bar or a large flat headed screwdriver and just kind of get that in there and use that to pry the pads out.

Now, we need to remove the brake caliper bracket. It's held on with a bolt here and a bolt here. These are 17mm. We're going to use a box wrench to break these free. They're on there pretty tight, so I'm going to use a dead blow mallet and hit the wrench. Then a couple turns and make sure it's free. Before I remove it completely, we're going to break the top one free. Get these turned out. Just make sure you're holding onto the bracket with one hand because once you move this out and once you remove this bolt, the caliper bracket's going to want to fall.

If this rotor doesn't want to budge, you can spray some penetrating oil around the hub here and you can use some 8mm bolts to push this off. In our case, it's nice and loose, so this rotor's going to come right off.

Before we can install our new pads, we need to compress this cylinder back into our caliper. We're going to take our old brake pad and a large C-clamp, and we're going to turn it down nice and slowly. Now's a good time that if this goes in nice and easily, your caliper's in good shape. If it's really hard to compress, you should consider replacing your caliper. It may be seized, but this one's going in nice and easily and evenly, so this caliper's fine. So, I'm just going to get it until it just bottoms out on the outside edge just like that and I can take this off.

Now, we're going to clean our caliper hardware. These little stainless steel clips that hold the brake pads into the caliper bracket. So, I'm just going to take some brake parts cleaner and brush them down with a wire brush. And do the same for both sides of the caliper bracket and both sides of the car. You can also take a little rag and just wipe in there when you're done. These clips are basically stainless steel so they don't really rust and can be reused.

Now, start by putting brake rotor on backwards, take our brake parts cleaner, clean off the oil that they're packaged in, and wipe off any excess. The rest will evaporate with the brakes part cleaner, and we can flip it around the right way. Install it in place. You can actually take a lug nut and thread it in. It'll help hold the rotor while you're trying to install the bracket. Spray this side with brake parts cleaner.

Install our bracket back, bottom bolt lined up and the top one installed. Just make sure these bolts are nice and tight. Make sure the pads are nice and clean and that there's no grease on them. Just take some brake parts cleaner and just spray them down before you install them. Take a little bit of caliper grease, just put it on the ears—you don't want to put a lot. The outer curve is going to match the outer curve of the brake rotor so this is your inside pad, otherwise it would go this way cause they can go inside and outside but you don't want to try to install it this way, it's not going to work for you.

So, now we're going to start with the back one, and I'm just going to place it in the lower part of the caliper and turn it into the clip. Push the upper one in. Those will just slide into place. Clips are holding up against the rotor. We're going to take our caliper that we've hung by the bungee cord and hook it from the bungee cord. Place this in the correct position.

Reinstall all the bolts, both top and bottom. Use a ratcheting wrench and tighten these up. Don't forget to remove your bungee cord. Remove this lug nut I was using to hold onto the rotor and reinstall the wheel. Once both wheels are reinstalled, you can lower the vehicle, torque the lug nuts, and then we'll pump the brake pedal.

With the vehicle on the ground, tighten your lug nuts to spec. Go in the cross pattern. Got to line up the valve stem opening with the valve stem in the wheel. Should fit right in place. Take the 21mm socket and just thread these on. Just do them hand tight because they're just plastic. You don't want to break them.

To push the calipers back out since we compressed them, gently press on the brake pedal. Don't mash it to the floor, just gently press it, and build up the pressure. You'll feel it get harder as the brake caliper pistons move out to meet the pads. That feels good.

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