My wife recently bought a 1999 Impreza wagon with 77,000 miles on it. Private sale. I noticed that the brakes were a little soft so today I decided to do a brake job on it.
I was surprised to find that it had drum brakes in the back. Here's where it gets weird. The front right pads were completely worn out and they were original Subie pads.
The driver's side had replacement pads from Autozone and they looked almost new. The rear shoes were almost new. What puzzles me most is why only the left front pads were replaced and why didn't they exhibit more wear?  Were the right fronts doing all the work? The car didn't pull when the brakes were applied; I just thought that they needed to be done due to a soft pedal.

Someone really did a half rump roast brake job on it.

 

Put a fresh set of new pads on the front and bleed all of the lines. With that mileage its about double overdue for new brake fluid if it wasn't changed at 30k.

 

(The new bad word filters are creative )

Edited September 19, 201312 yr by Fairtax4me

possibly some parts from a wrecking yard were swapped in on one side?

What puzzles me most is why only the left front pads were replaced and why didn't they exhibit more wear?  Were the right fronts doing all the work? The car didn't pull when the brakes were applied; I just thought that they needed to be done due to a soft pedal.

 

Probably just swapped out just one side to eliminate the noise prior to the sale. Usually just a cheap fix. If one of the calipers seized it can wear one side very quickly, but you would notice this when driving the car.

 

Agreed that if you replace both front sets, you should be fine. You're probably just following up on a cheap fix from the previous owner. Bleed the brakes and check for leaks if the pedal remains soft. Or if the fluid looks ugly. Brakes are one of the more essential preventative maintenances to be made - particularly since it's your wife's car.

yep, sounds like it was pad slapped by some jack rump roast with minimum effort.  odd since i've never seen one set of pads for sale, they only come in sets.  they just tossed the others away...or saved them for the next subaru, LOL?

ha ha, i tried out that filter fairtax, to see what it would do. i generally never type like that anyway...i should start trying that stupid codswalloping spoob more often and see what it does...like right now....oh i can't want to hit post, where is it...  edit...i need to go to bed, i should not be laughing this hard at this. lol

Edited September 20, 201312 yr by grossgary

thanks for all your help. it appears that the 'quick fix' was indeed what happened.