Caliper Life

[jeclarke]

I have a 2015 Yukon with 95,000 miles and I’m getting ready to do a brake job. I plan on new pads, fluid and rotors as I’m getting pulsing in the pedal that doing the brake-in procedure never seems to eliminate for very long.

How many miles have you folks gone with the original calipers? Mine are not leaking and not pulling to the side. Wondering if I should replace them.

How many miles did you get on your original calipers?

 

[swathdiver]

I have a 2015 Yukon with 95,000 miles and I’m getting ready to do a brake job. I plan on new pads, fluid and rotors as I’m getting pulsing in the pedal that doing the brake-in procedure never seems to eliminate for very long.

How many miles have you folks gone with the original calipers? Mine are not leaking and not pulling to the side. Wondering if I should replace them.

How many miles did you get on your original calipers?

155,423 miles, one piston on one caliper hung up so the fronts were replaced with new and rebuilt the rears.

 

[THarber]

Calipers should last many hundred thousands of miles if you keep up with flushing the fluid. If your brake fluid is black or dark, it needs to be flushed. The color change indicates contamination, which they all get. You do need to be careful with the abs brakes, do not allow air to get into the system, if that happens you will need to get a scan tool and perform an abs bleed function.

 

[RST Dana]

I had 170 on my 16 when I traded and it had original calipers. Changed front rotors and pads twice..

 

[Doubeleive]

unless you have uneven pad wear (this includes left & right sides and inner/outer pad) or leaking fluid then your calipers should be perfectly fine.
the only other thing that happens is sometimes the rubber seal for the slide pin will get deteriorated which can be replaced

that being said I am very ******* brakes when I bought my 2012 in 2017 I discovered it had a leaking front caliper so I replaced both front's with remaned ones, about a year later one of those was getting stuck so I replaced the one side, then a few months ago I saw the rubber seals on both were toast so I bought new oem calipers that are coated and made for towing so maybe those will hold up better.
on my 2018 it has 40k and I have already had to do the front brakes with new rotors and pads the calipers seem to be fine, the rears are holding up so far

 

[lbenson]

I had 175k on my '15 Yukon Denali when I sold in the spring. Original calipers. Worked great. Only had changed pads and rotors twice.

 

[Rygrego]

I have a 2015 Yukon with 95,000 miles and I’m getting ready to do a brake job. I plan on new pads, fluid and rotors as I’m getting pulsing in the pedal that doing the brake-in procedure never seems to eliminate for very long.

How many miles have you folks gone with the original calipers? Mine are not leaking and not pulling to the side. Wondering if I should replace them.

How many miles did you get on your original calipers?

I've gone as much as 200,000 on the originals. If they're not leaking or hanging up leave them alone.

 

[OR VietVet]

As has been said, brake fluid flush/maintenance is key to caliper longevity. If live in the rust belt, the caliper guides and seals can take a beating. I have even taken down my calipers/pads at about 1/2 wear and cleaned the guides and refreshed hardware to increase reliability. The type of driving can also have an effect on rotor warpage. Lots of stop and go, especially with heavy accel pedal and higher speeds slow down can heat the system up beyond norms. Heat transfers in to the fluid and can cause caliper seal problems over the long haul. Towing can also contribute to heat build up. IMO, brakes are the most important system on a rig. Take care of that system.

 

[MrMonte]

My 1999 Suburban 1500 would warp its 11.5" front rotors every 20K miles. My 2018 Yukon Denali rolling on 22s has 76K on original brakes with no pulsating & pads look like new.

My 2014 SS Sedan still has factory rear brakes at 125K miles with 50%+ pad remaining. I replaced the Brembo pads 60K miles ago with EBC Red Stuff for less dusting of the rims but still had lots of pad life left.

 

[B-train]

Agreed with above. If your vehicle brakes straight and the pad wear is even, just do a gravity bleed to get some new fluid into the system. I've had a handful of vehicles over the years that had well over 200k and never once had to put on a caliper.

Clean all the slide areas for the pads and clean the caliper mounting areas to remove any crusty stuff - a file works well. Also clean the bearing face with a file or wire brush to make sure the had sits flush (if you're not in a salt state, then this is probably a mute point). Then pull the caliper pins and put a mew coating of high temp silicone grease on them. I also use a very thin coat of silicone on the backs of the pads where they contact the caliper.