Brake pads fell out

My Tacoma is an '02 with just over 80K. I've had it for less than a year. I replaced the front brake pads just after I got it, Using a Haynes manual as my guide. I have done brakes on at least a dozen vehicles before, but this was my first time on a Toyota. Two days ago, I started to hear the slight grinding sound that indicates thin pads. I drove very little since then, planning to replace them later today. When I backed out of a parking spot, one of the pads, and two of the plates fell to the pavement. I have never seen brake pads actually fall out of any vehicle like that before. I installed them by the book, and had no indication of a problem. Does this indicate serious damage to other components? I plan to replace them tomorrow (with better than store brand), but I'm really concerned about safety if there is something I'm missing here. Thanks for any input.

 

unless it sheared the 2 pins going through the pads on top and bottom or broke the calipers i do not see how they fell out. id really check it out good.

 

is your caliper broken. the pads should fit in the grove. they should have come with the spring clips. did you use new ones. did you put the two guide pins back in ?are you saying the pad dis bounded from its baking plate?

 

haven't heard this one before :/

 

welcome. be sure to visit the texas bs thread and vote on my sig thread

 

bizarre. doesn't seem likely.

 

If the pad fell on the ground, then so did the pins and clips that held them in place. You'll have to get new ones.

I recommend you take your truck to a dealer. He will do install them correctly and have all the little clips and pins that are needed.

 

Looks like I'm taking the day off from work anyway. I'll post some pix of what I see when I pull it apart. I'll have to figure out how to get it to a dealer if it comes to that. Thanks for the responses.

 

Wow. Unless both pins and the retaining pin fell off, there is really no way this should have happened. Even if the two pins were not installed correctly and not through the holes on the pad, they still shouldn't be able to fall out. I would look for something that is way wrong.

 

Thank you for your patience. I replaced the pads today. I didn't find anything wrong with the calipers, or any indication of anything broken off. What I did find was that the pads were far more worn than I had initially thought. The noisemaker clip things were gone, and I used the wrong clips on the outboard side. I still don't like the fact that the worn pad and shims just fell out, even if I had overlooked something on install.

These are the pad and shims that fell out.




These are the outboard ones on the same wheel.



This is the caliper after I took the wheel off.



This is the caliper from both sides.





I installed the new pads without incident, making sure to use the clips properly as per Haynes and the guys at Autozone. I think I'm going to have my rotors and calipers checked out before I do this again.

 

Five lugs a nothing like a six lug I don't see the pins that a six lug have. What holds them in place?

 

The spring steel channels that you can see in the last picture.

Yes... if the pads wear that far down, the backplate is not thick enough and it will fall out.



Word of advice....

NEVER TOP OFF YOUR BRAKE FLUID UNLESS YOU HAVE BRAND NEW PADS!!!!!!!!!!!!

When the pads wear, the piston extends.
When the piston extends, the brake fluid level drops.
When the brake fluid level drops too far, it will illuminate the "BRAKE" dash indicator. This will happen before the pads are worn enough to damage the rotors unless you have a sticking caliper wearing one pad.

 

x2

 

At least the slave cylinder didn't overextend and leak brake fluid like my old Nissans did.

 

Most cars have enough pressure to hold the pads in place. The only way I can see that happening from wear is if the pads are beyond the metal, and the rotor is wore WAY down below min thickness. I haven't owned every car that is out there, but every car I've had, this is the way it is, and as a student, I've had some pretty thin brakes, to the point of adding space for stopping distance until I had the money to fix them.

I'd also check the calipers aren't seized open. Put the pads back in, and have someone press the brake and see if the caliper compresses (DON'T do this with the caliper off the wheel. If the caliper is good, it won't be for long if it doesn't have any resistance. Another word of advice from unfortunate experience...)

 

I have often lived on a thin budget, and got a few extra miles out of every part I could. I'm plenty familiar with seeing pedestrians cringe in auditory pain when I applied my brakes.

A serious brake job by someone more familiar than I am is on the to do list before these pads are replaced.

 

I recall one vehicle I had and telling the mechanic, "Those aren't wear bars, they're 'emergency tread'!" When he stopped laughing at me, he felt sorry for me and tossed me a set of used ones for under a hundred bucks.

 

My old Volvo had been t-boned just before I bought it. I had a screen door hook on the outside of the driver's door to keep the door closed. The drive arm for the windshield wipers was broken. I had a loop of string run through the vent windows, and tied to the wipers. Not a problem when I had a passenger, but if It rained when I was alone, it was tricky to keep the wipers going and shift. At the time, stuff like that was just a matter of getting by with what I had. I can't see trying to do things like that now.

 

You win.

 

For whatever reason (possibly using low quality pads) the inner pad seems to have worn more than the outer pad, and has been cutting into your rotor. Eventually it cut so deep that the pad was able to move in far enough to fall out of the inner area where the caliper is not able to hold it. You will HAVE to replace the rotor on that side, and install new pads. To be honest you are lucky that the pad didn't fall out when you were having to stop behind something, or at a street light.