all right this is SSL FEMA dad was simple suburban living in today we're going to show you how to change the rear brakes and rotors on a Chevy Traverse alright so this process that we're going to use today is a very basic it's very easy at you know I guess in a skill level it's an amateur very low skill level anybody can do this with some very basic tools the process we're going to use today is very similar almost identical to the front brakes and rotors they're there there's only minor differences so you could you know follow up with this video and do all your brakes on a traverse this also is the same process for any like model vehicle now we're working with a 2009 model here but this is same for your Arcadia's and our Acadias and enclaves and all the other GM branded SUVs that are similar to the Traverse and for just about every year the the processes is almost identical so if you check this video out you can get the idea on just about any Chevy mini SUV like this so let's first dig into what we need to get started ok so just to go through some of the tools that you will need to get this job done 14 millimeter socket and it doesn't matter what you drive you're using for that I'm using around a 3 inch 3/8 socket or 3 inch driver a Torx bit this is a t30 Torx bit now you'll only need this if you're going to be doing the whole rotor replacement as well if you're just doing your brake pads only and your rotors are in good shape you will not need this I will put a link to one of these in the description to this t30 over on Amazon if you're ordering everything together you can get this as well a lot of people don't have those you will also need a 21 millimeter socket and I'm using this on a half-inch drive or half-inch socket wrench you'll need a little more power to get to these nuts or bolts off as well so a couple other things that are going to come in handy an 18 millimeter open and wrench now you can buy a caliper or piston compression tool which you will need to do the brake pads or you can use a c-clamp with just a little piece of wood or something stiff here that's it's like you'll see when I get into the brake job here if you've never done this before you'll use this to compress the piston back into the the caliper there because the brake pads that you have now are worn down thinner and the new brake pads we're putting in our and so you need to get that piston compressed all the way back in and I'll put a link in the description to the actual tool there's a tool it's not very expensive to do this or you can just use this this is what I do see clamp and piece of wood so it's also a good idea to have just a little tube of white grease or a big - of it whatever there are some lubrication points on the brake pads that that you'll need to to grease up a little bit and so this white grease works fine for that it's also a good idea to have some thread Locker you know there's a couple bolts on there that you just want to make sure those don't come loose obviously brakes being kind of important on a vehicle and so having some thread Locker is a good way to go as well I'll put again links to this stuff in the description over on Amazon now another thing that I do because some of these bolts on the actual caliper assembly is pretty they're pretty hard to get off and so I have a piece of black pipe that I used a little extra leverage on some of those and that can definitely save you a lot of heartache trying to struggle with these things we've got your your truck jacked up or your your vehicle jacked up so as far as the parts use an AC Delco stuff here you know OEM stuff I bought all these on Amazon I found that to be the cheapest place so you can actually if you check the links on the description you can get everything you need for this job and have it shipped to you in two days for free so brake pads they don't come with both halves of the brake pad and then the clips that you'll need as well and it's nice because it does have all the lubrication points right on the box so you know what you need to to kind of grease up as you take things apart and I'm also doing the entire rotor here the rotor is not necessary to be replaced unless you've let your brake pads wear - too long and you've got grooves also if you're noticing a lot of waviness in the you know the pedal when you're stopping a lot you might have a rope or a warped rotor and so you might want to replace them as well our vehicle has over 100,000 miles on it and so I will be replacing these because they are a little bit grooved and I like to get fresh parts on well I'll have everything taken apart anyway so these are a little more expensive though again link for is on the in the description over on Amazon alright so first thing we do here is get the caliper taken off and there's two fourteen millimeter bolts one on the bottom one at the top I'm gonna get those taken off first there's also a nut on the inside of this that if that starts to rotate you can use that 18 millimeter open end wrench to hold that still but these broke loose without me doing that and I hold my fingers to get it off caliper should wiggle free you want to make sure you don't drop this so let any tension on it because you got your your brake line connected so just set it up here on top of everything make sure it isn't fall off used to be some wire to tie it down if you need to and next I'm going to do is there's two 21 millimeter nuts back behind here and they hold the whole brake pad bracket on so we're going to take that off next all right once those bolts are loose set those aside and the whole bracket holds the brake pads should come out in here now so we've got that out and I'll show you how to get the new brake pads put in okay so the brake pads themselves and just tap out of here and you can see those were totally smoked and that's why my rotors were starting to get wrecked okay and then we've got these clips here just pop right out that's the old clip and then the new clip it's identical and they just kind of snap into place here you can kind of feel them it's too little too little flaps off this bracket that kind of fall into a notch there so that's good and get the other side off okay so I like to put a little bit of white grease on the tops of these brackets the brake pads are going to be sliding on those so it's a little bit too much we'll see use that on the other side but the brake pads kind of slide back and forth on those so okay so these pads that I got they as far as I can tell they are identical and so there's not one that has to go on one side or the other and so obviously you're going to match the shape of the we'll put them in this way and match the shape of the roller there and the brackets and these will just get pushed in I'm going to leave these all the way to the outside of your bracket so those will just sit right in there for now and you also have these these Pistons so this whole thing has the piston or the the piston you know compresses it this whole bracket moves just a little bit okay and so these actually slide and there's these a rubber boots here now if these are ripped or anything you want to get replacements for them but you can pop these off and you can see there's grease on here so we need to pull these out kind of suctioned in there and we can get a little bit of grease on these now the other grease point is the the piston is going to be right on sitting on this brake pad as well as the arms on the other side of it and you just don't want that to seize up or rust on there or anything like that so you can put a bunch of grease all over the front of these pads on each side okay so if you're just doing the brake pads you can ignore this part but I'm going to be replacing my rotor here and so there's that t30 torx bit right here I mean it really shouldn't be on there super tight so you can hold the whole caliper with your knee or hand or whatever and just break that loose all this does is just holds the rotor in place while you're putting it on taking it off I don't see any real other purpose for it so the lug nuts entire hold this thing flat so then just a little screw will come out and here's the fun part so what happens is these the rotor is rusted right to the hub the wheel hub and so you need to break that loose now if you're not a very good shot you might want to put your your lug nuts back on you know but we're going to I'm going to be risky today so the idea is to just tap it right on in between each one of these and eventually it will come loose you can only go it right off so this is where on the rear brakes there's a gives emergency brake in here and it's a good idea just to throw a little bit of brake cleaner wd-40 on the spring and stuff like that here just help make sure this stuff doesn't seize up because you probably don't use it very often there's one on the bottoms you okay and the new new rotor will go right back on here you want to make sure you line up that hole for the little Torx screw and there's also this little rubber grommet that covers the other hole I just took this off the old one there's two holes in this new rotor split our Torx screw back in huh all right here's where clamp comes in handy to take our piston out here and there's a flat spot right on the back of this so just use a piece of wood here in between that so once you climb up everything into place here basically you're just going to slowly tighten this down and you can see it'll start to compress that piston and you want to you have to reposition a couple times that you want to press that because slowly all the way in to will go in anymore Holloway and flush with the with the bracket I'm just depositing that's it alright so on these 21 millimeter bolts here this is where our our thread keep when you call it thread sealant thread Locker just put a little bit on the top that's toughest then it's a little bit on the on the bolts here these it's one of the reasons why these a little harder to get off because they generally have a thread Locker on them so get those prepped and ready here we're going to put our bracket back on and then the caliper will go on after that next we're going to get the caliper back on here and that should fit over the top of your brake pads now I need to push them in a little bit and I didn't put any oxide on these our thread Locker on these they didn't have any on before so these are different and I think these will be just fine without it universe using our 14 millimeter wrench here to tighten those back up and our 18 millimeter open end here to hold that bolt make sure those are nice and tight I'm not using a torque wrench on anything here I should be I'm not going to deny that but in most cases I've just never needed to have one so I don't have one but if you want to do this to manufacture spec I would recommend getting a torque wrench in following the manufacturer recommended torque on all these bolts and that pretty much wraps it up the main part of the job here obviously we need to get our tire back on and always remember to tighten your lug nuts back onto the tire and a star pattern you never want to just tighten around in a circle most people know this but just to to cover all our bases here you want to tighten you know this one down then this one then this one and this one and this one and this one and then go back around and do the same thing that just makes sure that you don't end up with a warped rotor or your tire ends up getting bound on one of the lug or the post here if you do it on one side before the other and then it doesn't get tightened all the way and it ends up being on an angle so that's the way you you properly put on a tire but a very easy job here it took me you know all in all probably getting everything out put in anyway about an hour to do both sides and the parts are very inexpensive as far as the job is concerned and you can save yourself about fifty percent of what you'd pay a shop to do this don't be lured in by all the you know the sales and scam and not scams with the sales and stuff like that you're generally getting cheaper pads and cheaper rotors and stuff when they have you know these $50 great jobs and stuff so just be aware of that and know what you're getting to know what you put on your vehicle and know how it's done do it yourself alright well that wraps it up for this video it's a very basic process like I said you know it doesn't require a lot of skill it's very very easy to do just about anybody can do this with very simple tools all the parts and tools that you might need are available on Amazon and again I put links in the description we do get credit for those clicks and that's where I buy just about all of my parts and less like you know they don't have it on Amazon or I can find it cheaper it to O'Reilly or autozone or something like that but I found Amazon to have good parts and they might always match up with the vehicle very easy to find online and so that's where I use what I normally use so links to all those things in the description if you guys have questions about the process or comments or anything to add you know if you're a mechanic watching I miss something or left something out that you normally do I am NOT a mechanic so go ahead and throw that in there guys I'd love to hear it share that with everyone else as well but as always a you know hit thumbs up on the video if you found informational if it helped you out I'd love to hear your story of how you know the video helped you and always subscribe to the channel if you want to follow along we've got all kinds of other suburban activities and how-tos and DIY stuff and gardening and all kinds of things you never know what you're going to find here so subscribe and follow along I'd love to have you have you taken so as always guys thanks for watching have a good one