How to Replace Front Brakes 2011-18 Subaru Forester

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

In this video, we'll be replacing the front brakes on a 2015 Subaru Forester. If you need these parts or other parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1aauto.com.

I'm going to take this tire off. Before I lift it up off the ground, I'm going to break the lug nuts free. I'm going to use a 19mm socket and a breaker bar. Just break them loose. All right, with the tire up in the air, then I can take the tire off.

Okay, now I'm going to take these two caliper bolts off. I'm going to use a 14mm wrench. Before I loosen this one up all the way, I'll loosen the top one just like that. Take these bolts out. All right, so we're going to pull this caliper off. I can take a flat blade screwdriver and just pry in here a little bit. I'm going to pull out to compress the piston a little, and then we can pull the caliper off just like that.

I'm going to use a bungee cord to hold it up. Go through the caliper hole and then over here. That'll keep the pressure off the brake line. We'll just set that out of the way. All right, now we're going to take out the pads. Sometimes you need a screwdriver to pry them out a little bit. Pull that pad out. Then we'll pull the inboard pad out.

Next we're going to take these caliper bracket bolts out. They're 17mm. So I'm going to use a 17mm socket and a ratchet. We'll take these out. For the top one, I had to use a wrench because the socket would not fit in this area because it was hitting the strut bolt. All right, so we'll take the bottom bolt out. This would be easier if you had a ratchet wrench to get the top one out because you'd fit it in there better. Pull that bolt out. Okay, and pull the bottom one out. Now we can pull the bracket right off the rotor.

So to get the rotor separated from the hub, what we can do is we can take a hammer and hit right around in these areas. We actually sell this hammer at 1aauto.com. But in addition to that, there's these two little screw holes that you can thread some bolts. You'll have to find some bolts that fit. Whoops. So we'll thread this bolt here and thread this bolt here. I'll take a ratchet. I'm just going to snug these up a little bit. I'm not going to put too much pressure on them. Just wait till it gets snug, just put a little bit of pressure on, and then we'll do this the same to this one. And then I can just take my hammer and give it a tap. If I have to, I can tighten this up some more, and it's pulling the rotor right up just like that, and then the rotor comes off. All right.

We're going to clean this caliper bracket up. You can take a wire brush and just go like this. Clean up the pad slides. You can use a smaller wire brush to get in there a little better. Get some of the rust and corrosion out of here. We can take this pad slide off. Use a screwdriver. Get underneath there and pull that off. There's a little bit of rust and corrosion under here. Just take the wire brush and clean this area.

Take the smaller wire brush and get right in there. On the back of the pad guide, we can just clean this a little bit. This isn't that bad, so just wipe it a little bit. Just get a little of the rust off. We can reinstall this, and then do the same for the other side.

We're going to pull these caliper guide pins out. Pull that out. We're going to spray it down with a little brake parts cleaner. And use a rag and wipe it down. Then before we put it back, we're going to spray some brake parts cleaner into the caliper bracket. Clean this out a little bit. Drain that out. Then we're going to take some caliper grease, brake caliper grease, put it on the pin, and then we can put the pin back in. Make sure the boot goes over the pin just like that, and we'll do the same for the other side. All right.

So before we put our rotor on, we're going to want to take a wire brush or some sandpaper and clean this hub surface up. There's a lot of rust and corrosion on here. Take a smaller wire brush and get in here. All right, I'm just going to install the rotor backwards for a second because I'm going to spray the back side of the rotor with some brake parts cleaner and wipe it down with a rag.

There's a coating on the rotors, so that it does not corrode while it's sitting on the shelf. So now we'll flip it around. Now we'll spray this side of the rotor and wipe it down. Next we can install our caliper bracket and slide it over the rotor. And then with our bolts, we're going to slide them in the back side. We're going to torque these caliper bracket bolts. I'm going to use a 17mm socket and an extension with a torque wrench. We sell this torque wrench at 1aauto.com.

The reason for the extension is I can't get in there because of the strut bolts. And we're going to torque these to 59 ft-lbs. So that's good. For the bottom one, I'll take the extension off. And they're good. All right, so we're going to take a little bit of brake grease, and put it on the ends of these brake pads and on the side. This side, and the same on this side, and on there. Do not get the grease on the pad friction material.

All right, so we'll start with the outside. Put this one down. All right, so this little tab is going to come out a little bit. That's going to ride right along here, so we'll push that right there, and then it's just going to slide in there right like that. So that pushes on the outside.

Now we'll take our bungee cord off the caliper and set that aside. Take our caliper and flip it upside down here. A little bit of rust in there. Shake that out. So I'll take one of the old brake pads and slip it right here. Then I can use a caliper compressing tool. You can buy these at 1aauto.com. This is only a single piston caliper tool, but if you use the brake pad, we can alternate back and forth to get it to go down. Just slowly compress the caliper. You could also use some channellock pliers or a C-clamp to get these to compress.

All right, now the caliper's compressed all the way. Pull this brake pad off. Make sure that the hose is not twisted the wrong way, and you can slide the caliper back onto the bracket. Now we can reinstall the caliper bolts—the bottom one and the top one. All right, I'm going to use some small locking pliers to prevent the caliper guide pin from spinning, and I'm going to use a 14 mm socket and a torque wrench, and I'm going to torque these bolts to 20 ft-lbs. I'll do the same for the bottom. Use some locking pliers and this guide pin.

Then we're going to put the tire up. Put the lug nuts on. We'll just snug these up by hand before I lower the vehicle. All right, so I'm going to use a 19mm socket and a torque wrench. We're going to torque these lugs down to 89 ft-lbs, and I'm going to do it in a star pattern so that the wheel gets torqued down evenly. All right, before we take the vehicle and take it for a ride, we're going to want to pump the brake pedal, because what's happening is there's an air gap between the brake caliper piston and the brake pad, so when we pump the pedal, that's pushing fluid back down to the calipers and getting rid of that air gap. And the brake pedal, once the brake pedal feels good, then you're good to go.

Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1AAuto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.

How to Replace Front Brakes 2011-18 Subaru Forester

step 1 :Removing the Wheel

step 2 :Removing the Brake Pads

step 3 :Preparing the New Brake Pads and Rotors

step 4 :Installing the New Brake Rotor and Brake Pads

step 5 :Reattaching the Wheel

step 6 :Testing the Brakes

Tools needed

Shop Products

Toyota Subaru Scion Front Ceramic Brake Pads TRQ BFA73445

Part Details:

How to Replace Front Brakes 2001-06 BMW 325Ci

How to Replace Front Brakes 2011-18 Subaru Forester

step 1 :Removing the Wheel 0:31

step 2 :Removing the Brake Pads 1:36

step 3 :Preparing the New Brake Pads and Rotors 5:30

step 4 :Installing the New Brake Rotor and Brake Pads 8:37

step 5 :Reattaching the Wheel 14:10

step 6 :Testing the Brakes 15:14

Tools needed

Shop Products

Toyota Subaru Scion Front Ceramic Brake Pads TRQ BFA73445

Part Details:

How to Replace Front Brakes 2001-06 BMW 325Ci

step 1 :Removing the Wheel

step 2 :Removing the Brake Pads

step 3 :Preparing the New Brake Pads and Rotors

step 4 :Installing the New Brake Rotor and Brake Pads

step 5 :Reattaching the Wheel

step 6 :Testing the Brakes