Thanks a bunch. Those are pretty clearly single piston calipers. Not the duals we see on the 17inch wheel vans. The gathering evidence is that the brake size is tied to the wheel size.

Interestingly I hear the same is true of the Saab 9-3 my wife drives. The cars with the upgraded (17 inch) wheels get bigger brakes.

Dave

 

Glad I could help.

 

Well, We just got a few Base model CV into the dealer, 17" steelie with hub cap. I peak down under the car and saw the updated larger Brake on it.

 

Very interesting. I do see the dodge site now shows "Late Availability" for the 17inch steel wheels on the AVP. Anybody have any pictures of the 17inch steel wheels? I assume the covers are just slightly larger versions of the covers for the 16 inch steel wheels?

http://www.dodge.com/en/2013/grand_caravan/exterior/

Scroll down to the section marked:
VERSATILITY, MEET GOOD LOOKS.


Dave

 

You can buy factory 17" aluminum wheels for about $120 on ebay either mint used, reman or repro with warranty. I doubt if the steel wheels thru a dealer are much cheaper plus they require $300 worth of hubcaps to look half decent.

 

Ageed, but the concern here was the brakes and which trim or option packages got you the larger brakes. Lots of people have problems with the durability of the smaller brakes. It now looks like they've gone to 17 inch wheels either steel or aluminum for all trim levels and the heavy duty brakes along with that. 16 inch wheels will not fit over the heavy duty brakes.

 

That's odd, i thought the 2013 was going standard with the 17"?
My buddy got the 2013 with the nice rims. I took a closer look at the tire values and they are indeed 17". Does this mean the larger brake kit is installed? Anyway i can tell just by looking? These are the rims where you can see the brakes. They look very nice :-)

 

2 ways usually you wount see space between the rim and caliper. pretty much big and tight in there. other option take tires off and inspect see if it has 2 push cylinders on the calipers.

I would still like to see who has one to get the part numbers off the clipers and brackets.

 

The cost to convert to big brakes is cost prohibitive. This is why you will find lots of people talking about it, but almost nobody doing it. Tires, wheels, brakes plus labor will cost on the order of $5K. Only serious competition track racers looking for tiny improvements do such things. My '86 Mustang GT saw thousands of track miles over 100MPH with 10.9" rotors and 9" drums. The 16" Grand Caravan setup (12" rotors front and rear) is plenty beefy, but it does have some maintenance issues that need thoughtfully addressed.


After repairing my faulty 2008 16" brake setup myself, it's crystal clear to me why it was defective and wearing quickly. It was a total mess, the direct result of improper service repairs by greedy, lazy mechanics. The problem is caused by labor shortcuts and those too stupid to use a torque wrench; throwing a new set of pads and rotors on while skipping the floating caliper system service prep steps. This is a recipe for premature pad wear. All my brakes had rusty pins, rusty springs and rusty slider grooves causing frozen calipers (no longer floating, as designed) and frozen, jambed pads (brakes partially stuck ON). The sliders, pins and grooves must be properly cleaned and greased during the repair. All rubber boots must be properly installed and free of cracks to keep water out. At least half of the mechanics out there take the liberty of skipping important steps because it about triples the labor time, plus ignorant, short-sighted and penny-pinching customers bitch when parts are added to the bill beyond just rotors and pads.

The solution involves taking the time to properly clean and grease the hardware....AND replace ALL steel sliding and spring hard parts. If you're paying $30 for pads, you also need to be paying $15 for the spring slider kit plus $15 for the pin and boot parts kit too. Unfortunately Dodge chose to make the groove sliders and pin parts out of rust-prone steel instead of premium stainless, so they rust and require replacement every time in states that use salt on roads. Most brake pads don't come with these parts and few people bother to replace them.

The answer is surely not bigger brakes because they also rust and will be subject to failure from neglect or improper service lol. I've seen the same actions taken by naïve track enthusiasts who are too lazy to flush fluid every three months or properly clean and grease sliding hardware on floating caliper setups. Brake fluid contaminated with H2O will boil and cause fade even with the best race brakes. Winners purge fluid and keep their calipers floating instead of sticking.