Help me figure out what happened

I had a nice grinding and wobbling noise coming from the front as well as my brakes grinding. I finally swapped out the hubs, rotors and pads today and was left with questions. I bought this Jeep over 3 years ago and put about 45k miles on her since then. Never did the unit bearings or brakes before on this Jeep or ever and it went fairly smooth. Anyway on to the carnage.

This was the passenger side. The inboard pad was gone. The pad backing plate ate into the rotor and the rest is history. The outboard pad had plenty of life left but the outer edge of it had a ridge as if the pad wasn't sitting right on the rotor correctly.


Here is a better picture of the outboard pad.


My guess is improper installation? Or did the failing wheel bearings had something to do with it? Mind you, the hub itself had only a little play but the bearings were shot. It was grinding internally.

Here is the driver side. Not as bad as the passenger but again that inboard pad had a lot more wear than the outboard.


The inboard pad was worn unevenly. One side was more worn than the other.


It also had a fracture in the pad itself.


The hub on this side is still good surprisingly albeit rusted to the rotor. What caused the crack and uneven wear? Crap pads and rotors? Another curious observation I noticed was that the spindle ears where the ends of the pads sit were worn as if the pads were riding on it back and forth as the brakes were applied. Possibly warped rotor? There might be future complications with braking since the pads rest on those ears. The passenger side is fine. Let me know your thoughts.

I've had the same uneven pad wear, on other vehicles,
and the cause has always been sticking caliper guide
pins. The lube dries up and the pins freeze in place and
prevent the caliper from 'floating'.

The cure is to use new guide pins (or dress up the old
ones) and lube them well with a high-temp caliper
grease. They should be re-lubed at every pad change.

Runnin'OnEmpty said:

I've had the same uneven pad wear, on other vehicles,
and the cause has always been sticking caliper guide
pins. The lube dries up and the pins freeze in place and
prevent the caliper from 'floating'.

The cure is to use new guide pins (or dress up the old
ones) and lube them well with a high-temp caliper
grease. They should be re-lubed at every pad change.

Click to expand...

x2

or divots in the mounting ears doing essentially the same thing.