My wife and I owned a 2005 Nissan Xterra before the 2014 Frontier we own now. The Xterra And the Frontier are identical except for the outer shell. On the Xterra, I changed the original pads at 86k and they still had well over half the pad left. Rotors were fine as well. A majority of those 86k were highway miles. I just did it because they were 8 yrs old at the time.
Fast forward to today. Our Frontier is just about ready for new brakes. Living in the mountains can burn through some brakes especially living up several steep inclines to get to our home. I've never been real impressed with the factory set-up. They've never failed, they just seem "weak" to me. It was the same feeling with the Xterra. My question: without getting too expensive, what brake and rotor combo would provide a better braking experience and survive the constant up and down mountain driving?
Also, do they make bigger calipers/pads that could replace the factory ones. I had to do this very thing to eliminate a brake shimmy when stopping on a 2002 Toyota Tundra. The shimmy was there from the first day of ownership. Mulitple trips to the dealer accomplished nothing. There was either nothing they could find or they "tried" to fix it. Fives years later, and out of warranty of course, they put out a TSB to rectify the problem. It was determined the calipers and pads were under-sized and over-heated, causing the shimmy. Bigger calipers and brake pads were the solution. And it did fix the problem. I did the work myself and saved $1100. The Toyota dealerships, I called several, wanted $1400. I did the whole job for less than $300. I wouldn't mind doing this for the Frontier if there were parts available.
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