(T) Rear Brakes

Hello to you all this is my first post and I am looking for help !
I own a Stilo 1.9 JTD Dynamic, the rear brakes started to "grind" on friday so of to fiat I went Saturday, rear barke pads fitted £100 !!! But cant do them for days was the reply.Pads to sell you over £50, but parts dept shut now !
So I thought I would take a look myself to make sure it was not stone or something making the noise.
( by the way I feel am reasonaly competent with things nechanical on cars and motorcycles and have changed endless brake pads in my 38 years )
Heres the problem, the caliper piston does not want to retract !
Am I missinng something here ? does the hand brake "arm" need to be in a certain position ?
Do I need to rotate the piston to a certain position ?
Help !
I have took the lid of the "top up" resevoir under the bonnet, I have even undone the brake bleed nipple ( after clamping of the brake hose) and tried to push the piston back hoping that the bleed nipple would empty out all the piston fluid, but to no avail.
I cant even get the piston back far enough to gat the old pads back in even though the inner pad has NOTHING on it.
I actually went to a local car accesory shop and got some Lockheed pads for £15 as we need th car daily.
I am not sure if the brake caliper is covered in the 3rd year warrenty does anyone know ?
Please help
Here is my email address if any one is prepared to email their phone number I will call them if they can advise me
allbrads@ntlworld.com

Many Thanks Brad

Rear brakes grinding, sure its not a stone. Remember the Stilo has discs all round. I'd doubt the back brakes would wear out quicker than the fronts, unless you drive around with the handbrake on all day.

How old is your car, if its less than a year and you've not covered intergallactic milage already i'd kick up a stink and get them done under warranty. ;)

2003 3 Door Stilo 1.2 Active, Sassy Grey, plastic wheel trims - and 43mpg average so far. Love it, Oh yes!

the front brakes should be worn out quicker than the rear ones cause the car is fwd.Brad you rear brakes can be worn out quicker than the front ones only if you drive with handbrake as stiloboy says or if you drive in reverse all the time.

FIAT STILO 1.6 3dR Tiziano Red
Sub=Pioneer TS WX20LPA
AUTOMOBILE SK

I sorted the brakes out this morning
The piston has to screwed in to the caliper ( anticlockwise )
But I had to take of the calipers to do this !

The car is 2 years old has done 36,000 miles I am the second owner so I have no idea how the car wss treated prior.
The inner pad on the passenger side was worn to the metal ( probably due to the caliper "cradel" pins being slightly seized )and the others were below 2mm

RE: driving with the handbrake on comments, is this a common problem or are you accussing me of being stupid

P.S Lockheed pads LP1719 £15 if you fancy saving a few quid

I've driven with the handbrake on before, but i had an excuse i already had 120bhp to play with! [:o)]

2003 3 Door Stilo 1.2 Active, Sassy Grey, plastic wheel trims - and 43mpg average so far. Love it, Oh yes!

Alrite folks

After 38k miles i got a grinding noise from the back brakes so time to change em.

Problem is the caliper on the brake will not move back down the piston.

Has anyone had this problem before?

What direction do you turn the piston and the caliper to release the brakes?

Cheerz

Ok well got ma dad to strip the back right caliper down and there seems to be a problem with it before we where going to do the breaks.

Took it in to a place ma dad knows and a guy told him that there has been some problems with this as hes had quite a few ppl asking about these.

He asked the guy to get a Volkswagen Mk3 or 4 rear caliper and they are nearly identical apart from the hand brake cable attactchment.

Caliper is away down south to get overhauld.

Ordered a tool for the caliper as well for the left hand side.

Had some problems with the rear brake pad on passenger side sticking myself .
First time was at 18000 miles and had to drive a few miles to garage with pads down to metal meaning 1 new disc on one side as well.
Its come back again on same side at 35000 miles with new pads having to be fitted again .Mechanic said calliper was sticking on and he give it a lean and grease so that might cure it but im not holding my breath
Defintely a problem to watch out for
Also watch out for stilos rolling back downhill with the hanbrake engaged?

my rear brakes have started to make a high pitched whistle noise, i've looked at the pads and disks both look ok, and only covered 21,000 miles.

if i pull the handbrake up or brake when travelling the noise goes, has anyone else had this problem? or know how to fix it?

could be something trapped in between the disc and pads(is it rear shoes for the handbrake?)or maybe a slightly dragging brake

Mine does it too .... esp when I Reverse ... New discs and pads I was told by Fiat

new discs!!!are they taking the piss?

My rear brakes squeeled slightly, but only in reverse, it is normally caused by the pads not coming back far enough from the disks and rub very slightly, but not holding on.

What i would do is take the rear pads out and make sure that they actually slide in the carrier, if not you need to file down the locating edge of the pad slightly so that it does slide, apply copper grease to the edges and refit and tighten.

See how it goes after that is done.

I got my car in under warranty, only got 8,000 miles on mine, and did the above work on my rear brakes- noise now gone.

Because the rear brakes dont work very hard there is a real risk of semi siezing in the guides. Important thing to check is that the handbrake lever on each caliper is going back to the stop, if that is correct then as fiattech says strip and clean, lube guides and refit. Also check for corrosion on the disc surface, sometimes you get this noise after say twenty minutes of driving and its the rust getting hot and causing the problem, then you may need discs to be changed. More likely though that a strip and lube will fix it.