Sticking Brake Caliper - 2000 V70

Post by **rolsen11** » 28 Feb 2026, 23:08

Shortly after beginning an hour and a half drive today the rear left caliper seized up and began to burn, squealing noise and terrible smell of burning brake pad. New calipers ordered to replace all 3 calipers I did not replace in this thread to go along with the all new pads I bought for all corners of the car. Car is gonna have to be parked until parts arrive.

I am quickly getting tired of dealing with the brakes on this car so I figured might as well shoot the parts cannon and get it all over with. If 2 of the original calipers have gone bad now, I can't imagine the other 2 calipers are far from some failure either.

Post by **scot850** » 01 Mar 2026, 04:32

I had to re-read the whole thread so far. You have certainly been challenged by the brakes. Parts quality is an issue these days, but also road salt in the winter and de-icing agents cause havoc on brakes. I think on most of my P80's I have ended up replacing all the flexi-hoses, calipers, brackets and hardware. Stripping the brakes every couple of years, cleaning and lubing has kept them working up here.

The one thing to watch is the caliper brackets. I buy the brackets and the calipers together and replace the lot. Even then you have to watch how they have been reman'd. Some companies just file the leading faces of the brackets so much that if you fit the pads you find the pads actually rub on their tips where there should be clearance. I have had to file the tips to get a gaps to allow the pads to be able to move freely. If I have had to re-use the brackets I in turn have filed the contact face of the bracket as they can get seriously indented preventing the pad from moving.

Neil.

Post by **rolsen11** » 01 Mar 2026, 12:02

Thanks for the tips on the brackets, when I get in there to do this job I'll have to take a good look at it. As I think I mentioned in this thread I didn't replace the bracket on the front right because the bolts holding it to the knuckle were completely seized. I'll try again to get them off and at the very least see if I can do a better job of cleaning and lubricating it. I did hit it with a wire wheel to get off as much corrosion as I could but it may not have been thorough enough.

Also to add more context to my late night post, I dug into that rear left caliper on Thurday to inspect it and attempt to replace pads since that caliper, unbeknownst to me, has been lightly sticking for a while and actually depleted one of the pads down to metal (that's on me for not checking my pads). What I did on Thursday was replace the rotor since being metal on metal ruined the old rotor and put in one new brake pad. I put one of the old pads that still had some meat on it into the outer side of the caliper since I could not get the piston to retract far enough to fit the other new pad (hint hint). This was just for interim so I could still drive around the car a bit until the new calipers arrived.

In hindsight, trying to go on a long drive with a caliper I knew was failing was not a great idea

Thankfully it began to seize only a few minutes into the drive so I didn't significantly damage the new rotor before getting back home.

The parking brake hardware is also disintegrated, which came as no surprise really

Post by **abscate** » 01 Mar 2026, 13:30

Are you done with thst pad? Asking for a friend ….

Post by **rolsen11** » 22 Mar 2026, 14:36

Finally got the job finished yesterday! It's a good improvement so far, less pedal travel (naturally), more stopping power, smoother brake engagement and disengagement and, best of all, the brakes are dead silent. I don't remember if I said this before in this thread but the old brakes were incredibly noisy. They would very loudly squeak and squeal all the time, especially when wet. Not anymore! Hopefully this will result in less brake dust as well.

The results of this thread so far are as follows:
-All new NAPA brake calipers
-All new Hella Pagid semi-metallic brake pads
-1 new Hella Pagid rear brake rotor
-Added stainless steel brake pad shims to the rear pads (for anti-squeal)
-New front brake hoses (old ones severely dry rotted)
-New brake hardware (excluding front caliper brackets due to seized bolts)
-Volvo PTFE brake anti-squeal and lubricant paste added to contact surfaces (except for the rotors, ofc lol)

All I think might be left is to replace the front left rotor since after driving with the news pads for a bit, is showing that there is not even contact with the pad (i.e. the rotor surface is not flat). I'm going to continue to monitor it for a while before I decide to do that. Might go ahead and do that when I get around to replacing the front left drive axle.

Post by **abscate** » 22 Mar 2026, 14:41

Adds pushing 250 ml of brake fluid through each caliper to his list…

Post by **rolsen11** » 22 Mar 2026, 15:00

abscate wrote: 22 Mar 2026, 14:41 Adds pushing 250 ml of brake fluid through each caliper to his list…

Oh yeah, that too

Post by **scot850** » 22 Mar 2026, 16:23

Again, if you are only buying the caliper, make sure to check the caliper brackets where the brake pads sit to make sure they are not badly indented causing reluctance for the pads to move and more likely one side moving and the other causing the pad to skew.

Also double check the pads can move and that the pad has a gap between the pad and the bracket.

Good Luck and great improvement so far!

Neil.

Post by **rolsen11** » 23 Mar 2026, 14:24

scot850 wrote: 22 Mar 2026, 16:23 Again, if you are only buying the caliper, make sure to check the caliper brackets where the brake pads sit to make sure they are not badly indented causing reluctance for the pads to move and more likely one side moving and the other causing the pad to skew.

Also double check the pads can move and that the pad has a gap between the pad and the bracket.

Good Luck and great improvement so far!

Neil.

You know what, I completely forgot to check that. With that being said, the pads went in smooth and didn't appear to have any issues moving. The old pads also had nice and even wear on them. I'll make a note to check those when I swap to my summer wheels.

Post by **Grantkat** » 24 Mar 2026, 06:16

+1 on Neils comment about brackets. I just replaced all four calipers within the last month. The pins on rear were totally corroded. The backets as well. I tried to clean them and wire wheel them but the surfaces werent smooth enough in my opinion. I went with calipers and backets together.
Just make sure you have adquate grease (quality brake grease) on the pins and the slide surfaces. cant emphasize that enough.