Help replacing brakes on the 2020+ models

UltimateToolReviews · April 15

So I am seeing a ton of conflicting info on doing the brakes on these trucks, anyone have a complete step by step from GM? I've heard you need to use brake service mode, but I've also heard you only need to do that on the 1500s. And do you need remove some brake fluid before compressing the pistons for the new pads? Also do you have to run the brake life sensors or can those be left off?

Any clear help would be awesome! I've got the new pads but don't want to mess anything up here.

mrjulian416 · April 15

1500's only for the service mode, and I think that is only for the parking brake shoe.

You will need a bi-directional scan tool to reset the brake wear indicator (and new wear sensors, they are a wear-out part as the pad thins).

Other than that, nothing special. I did both fronts and rears on my '21 2500 to get rid of the dammmm squealing from the factory pads.

davester · April 15

a subscription to alldata.com would give you the info you need, how to do the job, what torque various bolts should be at, etc.

newdude · April 15

1 hour ago, UltimateToolReviews said:

So I am seeing a ton of conflicting info on doing the brakes on these trucks, anyone have a complete step by step from GM? I've heard you need to use brake service mode, but I've also heard you only need to do that on the 1500s. And do you need remove some brake fluid before compressing the pistons for the new pads? Also do you have to run the brake life sensors or can those be left off?

Any clear help would be awesome! I've got the new pads but don't want to mess anything up here.

2500hd DO NOT require any service mode. That's only on 1500s with the eBoost brake booster and electronic parking brake that is integrated to the calipers.

Brake pad life monitor can be disabled. If you plan on doing that, do it before you replace the brakes if it will let you. You can do this in the DIC.

As far as removing fluid, you can, but at a minimum take the cap off the reservoir when you push them in.

Edited April 15 by newdude

UltimateToolReviews · April 15

46 minutes ago, newdude said:

2500hd DO NOT require any service mode. That's only on 1500s with the eBoost brake booster and electronic parking brake that is integrated to the calipers.

Brake pad life monitor can be disabled. If you plan on doing that, do it before you replace the brakes if it will let you. You can do this in the DIC.

As far as removing fluid, you can, but at a minimum take the cap off the reservoir when you push them in.

Cool, just figured it out. Thanks!!!

For anyone in the future reading this to figure it out, start the truck, go into the i (info page on the dash), scroll down to brake life (scroll all the way down to edit page an enable the page if you can't find them) and click on it, if will give you the option to disable the system. I recommend doing it before touching the brakes at all.

Edited April 15 by UltimateToolReviews

UltimateToolReviews · April 15

1 hour ago, mrjulian416 said:

1500's only for the service mode, and I think that is only for the parking brake shoe.

You will need a bi-directional scan tool to reset the brake wear indicator (and new wear sensors, they are a wear-out part as the pad thins).

Other than that, nothing special. I did both fronts and rears on my '21 2500 to get rid of the dammmm squealing from the factory pads.

Same reason here, lol. Brakes squeal like crazy.

Chuck FB · April 16

4 hours ago, UltimateToolReviews said:

Cool, just figured it out. Thanks!!!

For anyone in the future reading this to figure it out, start the truck, go into the i (info page on the dash), scroll down to brake life (scroll all the way down to edit page an enable the page if you can't find them) and click on it, if will give you the option to disable the system. I recommend doing it before touching the brakes at all.

I am curious what made you decide to eliminate the brake wear sensors, some pad kits come with the sensors and as long as the harness plug etc isn't damaged I assume it shouldn't be too much of a pain to swap the indicators over to the new ones on the left side of the vehicle.

What brand and model/spec of brake pad did you go with and did you reuse your rotors or swap them out as well. Also did you have very uneven pad wear when comparing the inner to outer pads on a caliper which typically indicates the slide pins are not as free as they should be or the caliper pistons themselves are not retracting that slight amount after the brake pedal pressure is released. Did you take a peek at your park brake shoes, which would happen by default if the rear rotors were replaced. Odds are unless you travel up to the rust bucket states during the winter or drive on the Florida beaches and salt up the brakes, I imagine the park brakes are probably in decent shape.

johnnyquick · April 16

I never needed any brake service mode crap, I just did not turn on a any electronics at all during the procedure and I unplugged and replaced sensor that was hard to not damage the connector..and was the hardest part of the job.

Bought the best pads I could (Bendix) ceramic and it was super easy and fast to do no worries just tackle the job, easier than the old style with these pins, no need to remove fluid either just back pads off slowly and enough to insert new ones.

Cake walk.

UltimateToolReviews · April 16

17 hours ago, Chuck FB said:

I am curious what made you decide to eliminate the brake wear sensors, some pad kits come with the sensors and as long as the harness plug etc isn't damaged I assume it shouldn't be too much of a pain to swap the indicators over to the new ones on the left side of the vehicle.

What brand and model/spec of brake pad did you go with and did you reuse your rotors or swap them out as well. Also did you have very uneven pad wear when comparing the inner to outer pads on a caliper which typically indicates the slide pins are not as free as they should be or the caliper pistons themselves are not retracting that slight amount after the brake pedal pressure is released. Did you take a peek at your park brake shoes, which would happen by default if the rear rotors were replaced. Odds are unless you travel up to the rust bucket states during the winter or drive on the Florida beaches and salt up the brakes, I imagine the park brakes are probably in decent shape.

Less crap the better, I only buy lower trims because I don't want cool seats, sun roofs, etc. I work on my own trucks and want them to stay working. Brake sensors are so silly.

UltimateToolReviews · April 17

OK just did the job, here is what I learned for anyone future reading this.

1. Very easy overall, step 1 pop hood, clean around brake fluid res and open cap, place on top. Also no service mode needed on these (2500+3500 only)
2. I used 2x Bremen 12 inch bar clamps from HF, compressed the calipers fast and easy

3. I deleted the sensors, so I disabled them in the settings first, then just took the old sensors and zipped tied them out of the way(3 zip ties each), super easy and didn't cost anything.
4. my brake fluid res was overfilled when i done, I removed some before starting or opening a door on the truck to just below full.

5. That's it, took about an hour total, brakes are way better now, no squeal and they bite much better!

Chuck FB · April 17

3 hours ago, UltimateToolReviews said:

OK just did the job, here is what I learned for anyone future reading this.

1. Very easy overall, step 1 pop hood, clean around brake fluid res and open cap, place on top. Also no service mode needed on these (2500+3500 only)
2. I used 2x Bremen 12 inch bar clamps from HF, compressed the calipers fast and easy

3. I deleted the sensors, so I disabled them in the settings first, then just took the old sensors and zipped tied them out of the way(3 zip ties each), super easy and didn't cost anything.
4. my brake fluid res was overfilled when i done, I removed some before starting or opening a door on the truck to just below full.

5. That's it, took about an hour total, brakes are way better now, no squeal and they bite much better!

I don't believe you had mentioned which brand and pad model within the brand that you had gone with as that would have a bearing on the noise as well as the braking performance. I had a bad experience with 100% ceramic pads years ago on a vehicle that I doubt was ever designed to use such hard pads and I had some near collisions because of the lack of braking effect with the glass like hard ceramic vs a pad that was a mixed compound that offered a lot better bite onto the rotors.

No F-bdy Bs · April 19

I always felt like my 25' needed too much pedal pressure applied to stop normally. Is that a symptom of the factory pads?

Chuck FB · April 19

3 hours ago, No F-bdy Bs said:

I always felt like my 25' needed too much pedal pressure applied to stop normally. Is that a symptom of the factory pads?

That is a good question and from what I see for example on Rock Auto and not to claim they even offer the actual factory pad material but a lot of the GM pad offerings they have are listed under "daily driver" and some say ceramic. However even if a pad is listed as ceramic doesn't mean its the same blend of materials as a competitors ceramic pad. Also on Rock Auto they have the "Heavy duty truck and tow" section and more of the pad brands there are semi metallic and they list a ACDelco severe duty semi metallic pad as well.

In reading up about pad material it seems to come down to the fact that ceramic pads are easier on the rotors but don't have as aggressive a braking performance and a caution when it comes to braking performance in cold weather if the brakes are cold before the pads have had a chance to warm up. When it comes to towing/heavy loads they always point to semi metallic or a hybrid type blended pads for best braking performance and less fade and faster pad cooling etc but at the expense of more rotor wear/grooving. Put another way that a so called lightly loaded daily driver pickup may be fine with the braking performance of ceramic pads and prolongs the life of the rotors but a towing rig has high demands and the more aggressive semi metallic pads is really what one should be using, the last thing one needs is marginal braking and brake fade in the mountains when towing.

One thing is for sure here in Canada as per outlandish prices for GM pads, a set of genuine GM pads through a local supplier is 413.00, a set of powerstop evo ceramic Z17 series is 194.00 and the more aggressive powerstop Z36 series carbon fiber ceramic pad for truck and suv is 251.00 as some examples.

bruceb58 · April 20

14 hours ago, Chuck FB said:

That is a good question and from what I see for example on Rock Auto and not to claim they even offer the actual factory pad material but a lot of the GM pad offerings they have are listed under "daily driver" and some say ceramic. However even if a pad is listed as ceramic doesn't mean its the same blend of materials as a competitors ceramic pad. Also on Rock Auto they have the "Heavy duty truck and tow" section and more of the pad brands there are semi metallic and they list a ACDelco severe duty semi metallic pad as well.

In reading up about pad material it seems to come down to the fact that ceramic pads are easier on the rotors but don't have as aggressive a braking performance and a caution when it comes to braking performance in cold weather if the brakes are cold before the pads have had a chance to warm up. When it comes to towing/heavy loads they always point to semi metallic or a hybrid type blended pads for best braking performance and less fade and faster pad cooling etc but at the expense of more rotor wear/grooving. Put another way that a so called lightly loaded daily driver pickup may be fine with the braking performance of ceramic pads and prolongs the life of the rotors but a towing rig has high demands and the more aggressive semi metallic pads is really what one should be using, the last thing one needs is marginal braking and brake fade in the mountains when towing.

One thing is for sure here in Canada as per outlandish prices for GM pads, a set of genuine GM pads through a local supplier is 413.00, a set of powerstop evo ceramic Z17 series is 194.00 and the more aggressive powerstop Z36 series carbon fiber ceramic pad for truck and suv is 251.00 as some examples.

It's a no brainer for me...the GM pads are very inexpensive. I love how my brakes work...sticking with OEM.

Chuck FB · April 20

4 minutes ago, bruceb58 said:

It's a no brainer for me...the GM pads are very inexpensive. I love how my brakes work...sticking with OEM.

For the fun of it sometime I should go through the motions of pretending I am going to order them through Rock Auto as I know some time back I did a prospective order on something through them and by the time duty and shipping and dollar exchange was included, the price was 2 1/2 times as much as the initial price that someone in the states would be viewing. Which goes back to the price of the same GM pads here in Canada relative to various aftermarket pads.

Don't get me wrong as per the quality etc of the factory pads as I have nothing to complain with them so far but also have not towed with the truck yet. The other day I had swapped over from my winter tires to the factory tires and all the surfaces of the rotors looked perfect with no grooving other than some rust/staining shadowing due to the truck sitting for a while between uses and the salt causing slight rusting where the pads happened to be sitting. Pad life looks even from inside to outside pads so far but I only have 6000 miles on the truck. I haven't had any noise from my brakes so far and they act very smooth. I wonder if the 2025 model truck has a different compound compared to trucks built somewhat earlier that have experienced really short brake life or if its something entirely different at play with the system ( like automatic braking due to the cruise or stability system ) or a caliper issue that was causing the high pad wear.