Hi folks. I took a close look at my front left wheel tonight and I badly need some advice on a few issues. *This* problem is the brake was intermittently seizing. After the seize today, the brake did not completely release after cooling as it previously had done. On disassembling, I had a tough time (harder then rears) retracting the piston. The pins look pretty clean, as do the rotor and the pads. The rotor has 26mm thickness, and the pads appear to be almost like-new thickness. The rubber seal around the piston is not seated for about 1/5 of the circumference of the piston. In other words the lip of the seal that should seat inside the housing is not. I can actually see the side of the piston in this area, and I can see a little surface rust on it (sigh).

My feeling is that the cause is the improperly seated seal allowed moisture to get in, causing enough rust to seize it. Anyone agree or have another theory? I have browsed a few volvo boards, and one person said replacing his pads and rotors solved an intermittent seize. Those parts do not *appear* to be in very bad shape on my car, although the rotor is not perfectly smooth (very slight ridging from inside to outside radius). The rotor does not appear to have any unique areas around the circumference such as deposits or discoloration.

Thank you very much for any help you can provide. Don 151k 850T

Replaced my caliper with a rebuild - no problems and working fine. Thanks for the bandwidth and patience, guys. 20+ years since I worked on brakes and not sure I have ever replaced a caliper before. Did a couple of rebuilds on wheel cylinders a long time ago and happy to pay $42 for someone else to do it this time. Time will tell if the partial seizing I experienced did in the pads or rotor.

I had exactly this behavior on one front caliper of my 95 850 about 2 yr ago, right down to the partially displaced seal and the rust. I replaced the caliper with a Volvo rebuilt from a dealer and have had no trouble since, in about 25K miles of use.

My lifetime (30 yr) score of replacing seized or sticking calipers on 3 Volvos, 1 Saab, 1 Ford, 2 Renault - total replacements over all cars = 3, on 1 Acura (5 yr) - total replacements on one car = 4. I think the latter was probably due to contaminated brake fluid as this car also ran thru mastercylinders and a proportioning valve.

I suspect the continued performance of a particular rebuilt caliper may be luck-of-the-draw, but I do now replace all the brake fluid in my cars at purchase (as used) and thereafter about every 3-4 years.

For my money on brakes I can not beat Autozone. They offer differant grades of calipers and carry lifetime warranty. Purchase a loaded caliper and they will exchage the whole caliper pads and all when the pads wear out or the caliper fails. Use silicon grease on the pads per anybody on this board that works on brakes. I know some will jump in and say nothing but OEM and all that good stuff, but I am going on what I have seen so far with my 93 and several other vehicles I have put Autozone parts on.

Over the past couple of years, I've had both front calipers seize.

Is this ABNORMAL? I thought it was just one of those (many) things that wears out on every car. (My indy Volvo shop seemed to think it was normal time/wear.) Both times they replaced the rotors too, which were warped.

-BTC

'98 V70 T5 5-speed, 157,000 miles, Home Depot/Winter beater/RR station/NYC car, IPD stabilizer bar, factory sport suspension, Bilstein HDs, Volvo tower brace and skidplate, e-code headlights, V-1, Mobil-1 always

"The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79." -Douglas Noel Adams (1952-2001)

I have a question from ignorance - if I buy a caliper, do I have a choice of new or rebuilt? If rebuilt, are there different manufacturers? I saw a msg here asking if someone was using "Volvo rebuilds". On many websites there are ACEI rebuilds for around $50. Is ACEI OEM? Anyone have a suggestion on a source? I also saw a rebuild kit for $13 but I would rather go with something a professional has worked on...