why would outer driverside pad wear almost to nothing first?

[91scoobiesubie]

passenger side has about 1/8 - 1/16 left before worning? inside on both have decent pad left?

[professor]

usually this happens if the slider pins are dry or nearly stuck. The slider pins allow the caliper to self-center to keep pressure and pad wear even.

sometimes they work OK if re-lubricated but in the case where you've already seen uneven wear, I'd replace all the slider pins making sure to lubricate them properly. Since this may be a sign of poor maintenance of the brakes in general, in addition to the regular brake job, now would be the time to replace the brake fluid and bleed thoroughly to avoid having future problems with the calipers themselves.

I am assuming the rotors look OK but if roughed up on one side that could contribute to uneven wear as well. I like to replace rotors if there is any uneven wear or any sign of steering wheel pulsing under braking, or if it would be the third set of pads for the rotors.

[Legacy777]

professor hit it right on the money.

I re-greased my slider pins last night on the front and the bottom pin on the passenger side still moved more freely then the top one. This caused the bottom portion of the pad to wear more then the top portion.

Regrease the slider pins with some high temp syn grease.

[Brat4by4]

Well, the car is trying to give you a clue that you need to look for some WRX take-off calipers and brackets. Your car realizes your need to have a larger front rotor and newer design safer front calipers. Don't fight what the car is trying to tell you!

[ultrasonic]

Read my story on the same issue here:

http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?t=16854

The short version is that cleaning and lubricating the slide pins just didn't do the trick on my brakes. One of the pistons was sticking. This may the the problem you are having. As it turns out, replacing the front brakes is the way to go. Get take offs from an RS if you want to use your stock 15" wheels. If you already have 16" or larger wheels, get WRX units. Either one will be an improvement over your stock brakes. They both utilize the same 2 pot caliper, and the WRX has a larger rotor. Try ebay or nasioc to find them cheap.

On my rear brakes, just cleaning and lubricating the slide pins was sufficient to get everything working again. Along with new pads and rotors, of course.