Calipers Save Lives

Quick! What is a caliper? No cheating; no looking on the internet; can you say right now what a caliper does? Chances are excellent that if you are like most everyone else on the planet you wouldn’t know a caliper from a cantaloupe but trust me when I tell you that the caliper is instrumental in keeping you alive and well while you are driving, every bit as important as the exterior body that protects you.

A caliper is a part of the brake system in your vehicle and it is the job of the caliper to slow down your car’s wheels by creating friction on the rotors? Now maybe that technical talk confused you a bit but what should have been very clear was that if the caliper isn’t working properly then you won’t be stopping when you push on the brake pedal and that is something everyone can understand.

The brake caliper clamps onto the rotor and its friction material, called brake pads. When you press on the brake pedal, brake fluid creates hydraulic pressure on the caliper forcing the pads against the rotor and slowing your car down. So you see, if the caliper fails then you had better hope you have a very long straight road ahead of you with no cars to impede your slowing down progress because you won’t be stopping using your brakes.

Are calipers expensive? Not really, compared to say a transmission or a fuel pump or an alternator. Are they difficult to replace? Not really, certainly not like replacing an engine or even a strut. This is one of those repairs even this writer can perform so that should fill you with confidence the next time you feel you need a new or used caliper.

And since we mentioned it, there are those who are a bit skittish when it comes to buying replacement parts like calipers. They fear that there is too much wear and tear on used car parts and they should buy new to make sure the replacement part works. That may have been an accurate assessment decades ago but in today’s modern salvage yards you can buy with confidence. Used parts come with guarantees and limited warranties so you can buy with confidence and know that the very important caliper that you buy at a self serve salvage yard will serve you well for many miles ahead.

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