Damaged Caliper After Accident?

[Xeno]

My rear brake caliper has these cracks; it was involved in an accident months ago (replaced axle, rotor, bracket but not caliper). I just noticed this after installing new pads.

I also noticed that my old pads wore unevenly (see photo).The new pads were also only making contact with half the rotor, but after cleaning and greasing the sliding pins twice, they seem to be making full contact.

The car is making a strange noise when coming to a stop. Sounds like a something is sticking or binding (the parking brake is integrated into the caliper).

Should I go ahead and replace the caliper? The car brakes fine otherwise, but it does see some light track/autocross.

I was hoping not to replace my original caliper with some refurbished unit.

Pads used: Hawk HPS

 

[CarLuver]

looks more like whomever did a brake job did not use the correct tool and a pair of needle nose plier. the odd wear was most likely the pins were sticky

 

[Capt W]

Should I go ahead and replace the caliper?

I would actually replace both rears as a set.

I was hoping not to replace my original caliper with some refurbished unit.

Why the hesitation? A quality reman caliper has been cleaned/honed, re-sealed, and re-booted. They're not exactly the most complex pieces of equipment on a car. Are they exorbitantly expensive for your car? If not, what's the issue?

looks more like whomever did a brake job did not use the correct tool and a pair of needle nose plier. the odd wear was most likely the pins were sticky

Fully concur...appears to be a hack job and neglected slider pins.

 

[eljefino]

Those don't look like cracks but rather scratches. Your lubing of the pins was overdue but probably fixed your issues. Go around your car with an infrared gun after some serious braking and see if both wheels on the same axles have about the same heat signature.

 

[KrisZ]

Cosmetic scratches, nothing more. I would definitely not replace this OEM unit with a reman over something so minor. No matter how good the remans, they never come close to the OEM, and after the pandemic, they are simply horrible.

If it bothers you, find a quality reman seal kit and a new piston and just rebuild these calipers yourself.

 

[KrisZ]

Why the hesitation? A quality reman caliper has been cleaned/honed, re-sealed, and re-booted. They're not exactly the most complex pieces of equipment on a car. Are they exorbitantly expensive for your car? If not, what's the issue?

That’s pretty much crazy talk. That OEM caliper is still better than most remans.
Sure you can get lucky and get a good one, but that’s playing the parts roulette at this point.

 

[Rust_Belt_Pete]

I would actually replace both rears as a set.


Why the hesitation? A quality reman caliper has been cleaned/honed, re-sealed, and re-booted. They're not exactly the most complex pieces of equipment on a car. Are they exorbitantly expensive for your car? If not, what's the issue?


Fully concur...appears to be a hack job and neglected slider pins.

Because of the risk of getting a rust belt paper weight.

 

[lbhsbz]

Why the hesitation? A quality reman caliper has been cleaned/honed, re-sealed, and re-booted. They're not exactly the most complex pieces of equipment on a car. Are they exorbitantly expensive for your car? If not, what's the issue?

I've been in the caliper rebuilding business for 23 years....

Very hard to find a quality rebuilt unit these days, since most of the big rebuilders are now consolidated into 3 companies, all in Mexico.

The biggest problem is that nobody knows or cares what they're doing. Cores are not segregated based on condition before going into the shot blasters....castings from the rust belt might need 30-40 minutes to clean, while California cores might need 5 minutes. They all get 30-40 minute, which is not nice to the casting. Pistons are also not reconditioned properly, because the only way to do that correctly is time consuming and expensive, so they just get sort of cleaned up quickly, and reused...many of which should have gone in the scrap bin.

Now we've got defects, which come back and go straight into the core bin for this process to occur again. You blast things a few times in fairly aggressive blasters and the threads are now missing 1/2 their material, all the critical features are sort of rounded over, and the casting is basically worn out....but they keep getting put into boxes as long as they pass the leak test.

New chinese calipers are available for most applications and they are FAR superior to any commercially rebuilt unit.

 

[dogememe]

I agree that reman calipers are mostly awful and I would personally seek out a new one if available or try to keep the original as long as possible.

Just my opinion, worth about as much as you paid for it