The Second Law of Thermodynamics

It really is all about Entropy and our desperate fight against it. Maybe it should be the first law. A little more than a year ago we bought a "new" used car for the family, a 1997 Ford Explorer. We were and still are quite pleased with the car. Early on we noticed the brakes making a somewhat alarming sound when you pushed hard at low speeds. I bought some new brake pads and then pulled the wheels off. The pads that were on the car looked like they still had some life in them. So, I put the wheels back on and returned the pads to the store. Fast-forward to last week. The wife and kids come home one evening: "Dad, something's wrong with the car. Yeah, it's making a horrible noise." In situations like these, you can't expect any diagnostic help from the females. Everything is dire, sudden and needs immediate remediation. I drove the car a bit and could easily tell that it was the brakes, especially the right rear. We had to drive it that way for a day or two. But, I surmised that maybe the noise was just the handy metal tabs scraping on the rotors as they are designed to do to warn you of imminent need for replacing. Friday night Jensen and I tore into the project with Laney as spectator/cheerleader. It went smoothly enough. I first pulled off the left rear wheel and the pads were very worn and the handy metal warning tab was broken off. I began to suspect the used car dealer who sold us the car tore them off so the brakes wouldn't make noise when we bought it. I soon discovered that the easiest way to replace the caliper once the new pads were installed meant that you had to break off the metal tab. The right rear wheel was even in worse shape. The brake pad was completely down to the metal on the inboard pad. No wonder it was making such a racket. We also had quite a struggle reinserting the caliper piston. It may have been because it was at such an extreme end of its designed travel or perhaps because of wear. The piston was slightly out of alignment and it took me many tries to rectify the problem. It finally went back into its cylinder. I had visions of having to patch the thing together and take it to a real mechanic who would then charge me at least $300 and possibly find many other things wrong with the car that he would try to guilt me into fixing. "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!" After that slight hiccup we made short work of the rest of the task and now the brakes work great with no noise whatsoever.