Ford Edge – Is this brake wear unusual?

Ford guys and Sheldon,

The neighbors to the north are both teachers and after hearing them drive into their driveway with their brakes screeching metal on metal I thought I’d better go over there and offer some help. They knew the brakes were bad, Stealership quoted like $1400 and that was a little hard to do right now so they were trying to put it off.

They’re really nice and I know how it is on a teacher’s salary, 3 kids, etc so I said bring it over and I’ll do it for the cost of parts.

2011 Ford Edge. Just short of 63k on this brake job according to the neighbor who luckily keeps a book of receipts with every car.

So I just finished it up and what I found was that the inboard / inside pad on each of the front brakes was totally shot and down to metal backers, but the outside pad on both sides was still about 70% thickness. The metal on metal on the inside pad had totally fried the inboard side of the front rotors.

When I did the first side (passenger), I thought oh bugger we’ve got a stuck caliper here, but the caliper moved freely and pushed back easily on both of the 2 pistons. The slides were not rusted or bound up at all. Pads weren’t damaged or seized and they came easily out of the bracket. All hardware / anti-rattle clips were intact. I cracked the bleeder screws to check for pressure indicating a clogged line, no unusual pressure.

Everything went back together fine. Installed new pads and rotors and all new hardware. Cleaned and regreased slides.

The question is this: Is this the usual pad wear pattern for these Ford Edge small SUVs where the inboard pad takes all the wear? I’m used to a more even wear of the inside and outside pads, but I can find nothing else wrong so maybe this is just normal.

See pictures.

Many thanks.

Grouse

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Most often when I see unusual wear like that and pins/slides/calipers are not hanging up it is either due to the E-brake not being released fully ( think stuck cables here ) or the operator is driving with their foot on the brake pedal.
Ya, I know, if your foot is on the pedal the brake pressure should be even,,,,
not always, line length, ABS valves all take a part in how much or how little pressure is at any given caliper until the brakes are applied fully.

One other thing to look at is the wheel bearing, if there is a little play in the bearing the rotor can be tipped into the pads wearing them prematurely, I see you mentioned 63 K miles but I have replaced bad bearings with as few as 40 K on them.
??? Yep, too many trips through flooded roads or backing too deep into a boat ramp.

Another thing to check is with the vehicle raised up and on stands, have someone apply the brakes hard, at the same time you tell them to release the pedal, try rotating each wheel one at a time doing this, if a brake doesnt release instantly the rubber hose to the caliper is most likely coming apart internally creating a check valve effect keeping the brake applied at that corner.

My guess is similar to iowaboy.
1.Someone just holding a little brake pressure on, a 2 footed driver.
2.The seals in the calipers weak and piston not returning quickly enough.
3.Some people are just HARD on brakes. In town stop and go driving or trying to stop at the last possible second at every light and stop sign.
4. Have the brakes been replaced before? Cheap pads maybe?

That’s actually pretty impressive 63k with basically only using half the pads!

Coletrain27 wrote:

That’s actually pretty impressive 63k with basically only using half the pads!

Yeah! Just swap the pads to the opposite sides and go for another 63k.

Ron wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Coletrain27 wrote:</div>
That’s actually pretty impressive 63k with basically only using half the pads!

Yeah! Just swap the pads to the opposite sides and go for another 63k.

Great idea!

Just chiming in, my 2016 Silverado 1500 looked exactly the same when I did my pads last summer. I felt some significant pulsing which is what initiated my inspection.

I am not a 2-footed driver, my slides were perfect, and wheel bearings are sturdy. My rotors were a bit worn, especially on the inboard side. I put in new pads and rotors straight away and now I’m monitoring it. The worn rotors may have been causing this as I hadn’t done any brake work in 2+ years of driving it (purchased used).

The only thing I could think is perhaps something to do with stabilitrak/ ABS acting on the inside pad but I’m not sure exactly how those systems function from a programming standpoint.

At any rate, now I know to check my inboard pads more frequently. My wife used to drive a 2011 edge and I did the brakes on that twice, never saw this issue on that vehicle before.

Guys thanks for all the replies.

MX1825 wrote:

My guess is similar to iowaboy.
1.Someone just holding a little brake pressure on, a 2 footed driver.
2.The seals in the calipers weak and piston not returning quickly enough.
3.Some people are just HARD on brakes. In town stop and go driving or trying to stop at the last possible second at every light and stop sign.
4. Have the brakes been replaced before? Cheap pads maybe?

So I ran down the list with the owner and can’t find any of the conditions that really explain it. Both owners claim they don’t ride the brakes and aren’t hard brakes, so…

This is the second set of brakes on this vehicle. They were done at the dealership the last time so I’m assuming Motorcraft parts.

The backside of both rotors was thoroughly trashed. Deep grooves. One pad was through to the backer, so that explains the trashed rotor, but the driver’s side pad had not yet hit the squealer and had pad left, so why was just the inside of the rotor trashed?

The rear brakes have about 70% pad thickness so I didn’t touch them. Pad wear looks much more even back there.

Strange, but to KPE’s point, it could be just warped rotors ate up the pads on the back side. I guess it’s tough to explain any other way because when I got everything clean and regreased, the calipers slid just as smooth as butter.

I test drove it yesterday and did some hard stop and go and everything seated in and sounded normal. Jacked it back up when I got back and no sign of a sticking caliper.

So at this point I’m calling it good. Rechecked the lugs tonight and so I’m going to just give it 20k and then look at the pads and see if the unusual wear continues. I saved the good outside pads, so I could put them in if this unusual wear continues. Nice to save these folks a big brake job bill right now, they had a bonus baby and it was a big surprise, so daycare is hitting them pretty hard again.

Thanks guys.

Grouse

This brake wear is usual for Ford OEM calipers on Edges. I just changed my calipers to power stop and they work more evenly. The only time the Edge outer brake pads work is if you’re slamming on the brakes. They are built for heavier vehicles and Ford decided they didn’t want to change them for the Edge. I believe the Escape has different calipers.

Ryan Smith wrote:

This brake wear is usual for Ford OEM calipers on Edges. I just changed my calipers to power stop and they work more evenly. The only time the Edge outer brake pads work is if you’re slamming on the brakes. They are built for heavier vehicles and Ford decided they didn’t want to change them for the Edge. I believe the Escape has different calipers.

Interesting and appreciate the reply. That was what I was wondering because if just one side had unusual wear then to me that points to a mechanical issue. With both sides having such even inboard pad wear, that had me wondering is this just the way they are.

Given the price of a set of brake pads, I’m just going to tell the neighbors let’s swap out those inboard front pads after about 40k and call it good. The machine has over 100k on it now, so by that time, the set of pads I put in will probably be the last set before they trade it in. No economy that I can see in swapping calipers now.

Don’t think you need to change them till the rotors look like this. Kept telling a guy that worked for me he needed to check the brakes on his F250. This is what he found when he finally did.

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Seen lots of rotors that way over the years. The ones with solid fins we used to call then “wheel water pumps” because they looked like a water pump impeller.

I had a commercial truck that was stopped at a DOT random check point. It was red flagged due to one of the rear rotors where the pads squeeze broke free of the hub and that ring was just free spinning. I had never seen that before. I couldn’t believe my driver didn’t say he noticed anything wrong. Anyone had that happen?

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

Ford guys and Sheldon,

The neighbors to the north are both teachers and after hearing them drive into their driveway with their brakes screeching metal on metal I thought I’d better go over there and offer some help. They knew the brakes were bad, Stealership quoted like $1400 and that was a little hard to do right now so they were trying to put it off.

They’re really nice and I know how it is on a teacher’s salary, 3 kids, etc so I said bring it over and I’ll do it for the cost of parts.

2011 Ford Edge. Just short of 63k on this brake job according to the neighbor who luckily keeps a book of receipts with every car.

So I just finished it up and what I found was that the inboard / inside pad on each of the front brakes was totally shot and down to metal backers, but the outside pad on both sides was still about 70% thickness. The metal on metal on the inside pad had totally fried the inboard side of the front rotors.

When I did the first side (passenger), I thought oh bugger we’ve got a stuck caliper here, but the caliper moved freely and pushed back easily on both of the 2 pistons. The slides were not rusted or bound up at all. Pads weren’t damaged or seized and they came easily out of the bracket. All hardware / anti-rattle clips were intact. I cracked the bleeder screws to check for pressure indicating a clogged line, no unusual pressure.

Everything went back together fine. Installed new pads and rotors and all new hardware. Cleaned and regreased slides.

The question is this: Is this the usual pad wear pattern for these Ford Edge small SUVs where the inboard pad takes all the wear? I’m used to a more even wear of the inside and outside pads, but I can find nothing else wrong so maybe this is just normal.

See pictures.

Many thanks.

Grouse

My wife has a 2013 Edge which I’ve changed the front brakes on. The calipers get a little fussy and can hang up pretty easy. Even if you clean/grease the pins. I changed her front brakes around the same mileage and it looked similar. Something to keep an eye on

mojogunter wrote:

I had a commercial truck that was stopped at a DOT random check point. It was red flagged due to one of the rear rotors where the pads squeeze broke free of the hub and that ring was just free spinning. I had never seen that before. I couldn’t believe my driver didn’t say he noticed anything wrong. Anyone had that happen?

Many moons ago I bought a Ford Escort that was going to go to the junkyard for $50.00 that had one of the front rotors broken that way.

stevenoak wrote:

Don’t think you need to change them till the rotors look like this. Kept telling a guy that worked for me he needed to check the brakes on his F250. This is what he found when he finally did.

I’ve done a handful of brake jobs but… what? I either really don’t know what I’m looking at or I don’t want to believe what I’m looking at. How does that pattern in the rotor happen? It almost looks like a piece of art.

FinickyFish wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>stevenoak wrote:</div>
Don’t think you need to change them till the rotors look like this. Kept telling a guy that worked for me he needed to check the brakes on his F250. This is what he found when he finally did.

I’ve done a handful of brake jobs but… what? I either really don’t know what I’m looking at or I don’t want to believe what I’m looking at. How does that pattern in the rotor happen? It almost looks like a piece of art.

That’s called the entire brake is gone. It’s down to its infrastructure

Yes, the face is completely gone. Thought about painting it yellow and putting on a post. call it a sunflower.