Hello, I need some help and thought I'd ask the Caravan experts!! I own a repair shop in Burlington Ontario, we have a 2011 Dodge Caravan with the 3.3V6 and about 125,000km. Van came to us last week with spongy brakes, RIGHT rear caliper was seized up and wore out the right side pads. We replaced the rear calipers, pads and rotors. All was good for about 4 days until they went on the hiway for about 15 minutes and the LEFT rear brakes started smoking ( yes thats right, I said left) Van was towed back to the shop, we test drove the van and discovered that the LEFT rear brake would get up to 325 degrees but the right was fine at 125 degrees. We proceded to replace the LEFT rear caliper (that we just replaced, thinking it was bad) and the left rear flex line. drove the van again and the same thing happened!!

I'm stumped, I've been doing this for over 20 years and I cant seem to figure this one out....HELP!!!

Heres some things I've tried
-open the bleeder screw on the bad side, still hard to spin the hub (this is why we thought it was another bad caliper)
-Drive with the e-brake cable disconnected- still gets hot
-replaced the flex line because...well its the next thing up the line

My only thought is maybe the ABS module is letting some pressure through and thats why it started with the right side and moved to the left....like I said I'm stumped!!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

PS I tried to search this topic first so if theres already a solution please point me in the right direction.

Dan

 

So today after much research I decided to check the rear calipers and sliders to see if they were binding, the repair kit from Chrysler is about $430 canadian and seems to fix the brake pads sticking in the caliper adapter bracket. I checked and everything moves freely infact the pads will not stay in unless you hold them there with the caliper removed!!

We ended up replacing the front calipers, pads and machining the rotors as the right front brake seemed to be wearing faster than the left and since the front and rear brakes are typically interconnected through the ABS module we thought this might contribute to the rear working too hard. once that wa done I was able to road test it longer than ever and there was no smell or binding however the left rear brake is still getting hotter than the right so I'm not convinced that its fully repaired yet.

Tonight I'm going to pinch off the flex line to the left rear caliper and drive it to see if anything changes; typically if I drive on the hiway doing 110-120 the right rear brake gets to about 130 degrees and the left brake gets to about 160. This is just from the friction of the pads touching the rotor with the brake pedal released.....how do I know this you ask??? I drive for about 5 min on the hiway then by gearing down and not touching the brake I come to almost a stop then stop fully with the brake for the last 20ft. I suspect I will see the same temp side to side with the flex line clamped. My suspision is that there is some residual pressure being fed to the left rear caliper from the abs module or booster or??? Stay tuned!!