Okay now a question about my car. I need to replace my front brakes and my back shocks on my 2002 Kia Sedona mini van. Neither are in dangerous condition, it is just coming time to put new brakes on and new shocks on the back. According to the mechanics who have inspected both, neither are in worse condition then the other. The 3 places I went to said go with Brakes first then the shocks. Cost wise it will be cheaper to go brakes first, but my driver side shock is making a noise that is driving me crazy but is not due to it being unsafe. So I can’t do both at the same time, which would be the better to do first? Also need to do an oil change and change out the transmission fluid again soon so have limited funds.
BRAKES!!! duha what is more importiant your wife having to hear a noise and be able to stop or to be quiet and run through a red light??? put on some brakes and turn up the radio man and spend the extra ten bucks on the better of the two kinds of brakes the chain parts stores have!!! With the cheapest ones you will be changing them every six months!!! Hope this helps have a blessed day!@
Brakes are easy to check and if they are safe now you can do the shocks first. This assumes you will be doing the brakes in a month or two. If you do the shocks and then need to wait 6 months or more for the brake job, then do the brakes now.
It hardly matters which repair comes first. If both items are in safe driving condition (and we are assured that they are) you can flip a coin.
Since you are distracted by the noise from the shocks, do them first. This distraction may be more of a safety issue than half-worn brake pads.
More than a mere distraction, overworn shocks can lead to unstable handling, and ultimately a vehicle you can’t control in an emergency situation.
All 3 places said the front pads are at about 50%, they really didn’t give much detail on the rear shocks outside they believe they might be the originals but they were not in a danagerous condition.
I don’t see any reason to replace brakes with 50% of the pads left. How many miles since your last brake job? You have about that many miles left on your pads. The brakes should be good for awhile, so do the shocks now.
chaissos, you can’t possibly mean that worn out shocks are as bad as worn out brakes.
From the outside, bounce the corners of the vehicle. It should go down (as quickly as you can force it down), then rise up and settle in one smooth motion. If it bounces up and down, then you can expect that same motion on the tires when you’re maneuvoring the vehicle. Ever seen a car going down the higway with a tire bouncing up and down? Bad shocks. The end result is rubber that’s on the pavement for a fraction of the time it’s supposed to be, and the consequent reduction in traction.
If it’s not bouncing, then they’re good enough “for now”. There’s no telling when they will actually fail - and that’s generally a slow process.
50% on pads should give you another 5K miles easily. Depending on your driving habits, that’s anywhere from a couple weeks to several months.
So you have to decide which needs to be done now, and save for the other later. Just don’t let it go forever like your dad and his brake line. Tape won’t fix either of these, either. 
oldtimer: No, worn out brakes are worse, I agree…but since they’re at 50%, and he previously said neither was worse than the other…
We all know we can’t really tell from a keyboard. We do the best we can with the information provided. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes not quite as good. I just didn’t want it dismissed as merely a distraction. Accidents (details not at hand right now) have been listed as having suspension as a contributory factor (maybe not the main factor, but a factor).
No clue when brakes or shocks were addressed. I purchased the van in Aug of 2010 and it had 134,000 miles on it and now it’s at about 145,000.
You probably get 40,000 to 50,000 miles on the brake pads. At 11,000 miles per year, you have at least 3 more years on those front brake pads. Do the struts. This weekend.
At 50% I can’t see worrying about the brakes at this point so I’d go with the shock replacement.
With most people and normal driving involved, 30% (leaving 20% for getting near the replacement stage) will carry you a long long ways.
The 50% was back in early June when I had the van at the dealership having all the belts replaced and a new crank shaft sensor put on, they did a full inspection of the van at that time. So since then I have probably driven maybe 2000 miles, so I figure that 50% is now down to around 30% thus why I was considering the front brake job. I have noticed lately from time to time a slight squek
Brake pads don’t wear nearly as fast as you project. In 2000 miles the pads should have worn only a bit. If you are a very aggressive driver and like to wait until the last second to brake and brake hard you might wear the pads out faster. For me 2000 wouldn’t have worn the pads hardly at all.
Pad wear is easy to see on front disk brakes, in many cases you don’t even need to put the car on a lift. Have the pads measured now and see how they are wearing.
I just don’t see the pads wearing that much since June. The only way pads should wear out in that length of time would be if a brake caliper was sticking or you were doing a lot of hard braking in city traffic.
50% pads could last a long, long time.
I drive mostly in the city (but pretty gently) yet the last time I replaced pads (on an '88 Accord) it was after 70,000 miles with maybe 30% left.
I seriously doubt you’ve worn the brake pads 20% in 2000 miles. As others have stated it all depends on your driving habits just how much wear they’ve seen. I’ve personally driven over 100K miles on several sets of brake pads without getting into the danger zone of damaging the rotors. My GUESS would be nearly everyone would get at least 25K miles out of a set of brakes unless they do absolutely nothing except city/stop and go driving and wait until the last second to brake. You can check the condition of the brake pads yourself pretty easily. Most brake pads are approximately 1/2" thick when new and even riveted pads should wear to less than 1/8" thick without any damage to the rotors, but I’d replace them at 1/8" just to be on the safe side.
With winter coming up I am wanting to get both the shocks and brakes done before the roads get bad here and according to the national weather service we are in for another bad winter. I am also considering having new rotors put on since those are probably the original and maybe a bit worn.
From what I read on another tread your shock bushing is gone. This can cause “wheel hop”, rapid bouncing of the tire due to a very loose shock absorber. The hammering of the loose shock will damage the mount.
Your brakes should be good for a year, replace the shocks and repair the brake line on the Neon.