What Our Customers Say
★★★★★
"I can not say enough about the team here at East Valley Auto Rebuild. I was referred to them originally from a cousin of mine who said they were top notch and trustworthy. I had a pretty unique vehicle that I had exclusively been taking to the dealer I purchased it from for years, and had become unhappy wth thier shddy servce and overpricing. Not only did the team here have better customer service, they had the best prices anywhere for the quality of work they provide. They have found issues with my car that other service providers not only missed, but issues that could have caused damage to me or my vehicale as a result of their oversight and poor workmanship."
Erin H., Google review
★★★★★
"These guys are the best. The dealer repeatedly could not properly diagnose the issue with my 2017 Subaru Forester. One time at EVAR and the problem was properly diagnosed and fixed. Due to their outstanding work I now feel confident buying used Subarus because I know where to take them to keep them running."
James A., Google review
★★★★★
"Friendly group of people! I really like Marks energy and enthusiasm! So far, nobody has beat around the bush on my Subaru with the problems she has, but I trust these guys with my baby girl and getting her up to date since I have sadly neglected her and keeping her healthy"
Chris A., Google review
A brake job is the easiest place in this industry to be quietly overcharged. Four pads, four rotors, done, and nobody asks whether all four needed replacing.
Sometimes they did. Often the rears had 40 percent of the pad left and the rotors could have been measured, cut, and put back on.
We have a lathe in the building, so cutting a rotor costs us bench time rather than a parts order. That changes what we recommend, because we do not need to sell you a rotor to make the job worth doing.
We have been working on Subarus in Kent for over 30 years. We are family-owned and locally owned and we are BBB A+ Accredited.
Why Subaru Brakes Wear the Way They Do Around Here
All wheel drive does not help you stop. It helps you go. The brakes on a Subaru are doing the same job as any other car, on a vehicle that weighs a bit more and that its owner drives with a lot of confidence in the wet.
Add the geography. Kent sits in a valley with hills on both sides, and every commute out of it involves a descent. Stop and go on the 167 twice a day does the rest. Brakes here live a harder life than brakes in flat, dry places, and we see the mileage numbers to prove it.
Then there is the rust. Our winters are wet rather than salted, which sounds better than it is. Constant damp with no road salt still seizes caliper slide pins and rusts the parking brake hardware on the rear calipers, and a seized slide pin is the single most common reason one pad on a Subaru wears twice as fast as its partner.
We have pulled apart enough rear calipers off local cars to know to check the slides before quoting anything. A pad set on a seized caliper is money thrown away, because the new pad wears out the same crooked way the old one did.
Ever wondered why one side of your car squeals and the other never does?
That is almost always a slide pin, not a pad.
What We Do on a Subaru Brake Job
We measure before we quote. Pad thickness on all four corners, rotor thickness against the minimum stamped on the rotor itself, and runout on the hub. Numbers, not opinions.
We resurface rotors when they have the material for it. The manufacturer's spec stamps a minimum thickness into every rotor for a reason. If cutting it leaves the rotor above that number with margin, cutting is the honest answer. If it does not, you get new rotors and we will show you the measurement.
We service the caliper hardware, every time. Slide pins cleaned and greased, brackets wire brushed, new clips. This is the part that gets skipped on a cheap brake job and it is the part that decides whether the job lasts.
We flush the fluid when it needs it. Brake fluid absorbs water out of the air. Water boils, and boiling fluid in a caliper gives you a pedal that goes to the floor on the third hard stop coming down a hill. On a car that tows or sees mountain passes this matters more than any pad compound.
We bed the pads in. New pads need a proper bedding cycle to transfer material evenly to the rotor. Skip it and you get a shudder at 60 mph that everybody blames on warped rotors. Rotors rarely warp. Pad material deposits unevenly, which feels identical and is not the same problem.
The Rear Parking Brake Nobody Checks
Plenty of Subarus use a small drum brake hidden inside the rear rotor for the parking brake. It is a separate mechanism from the service brakes, with its own shoes and its own adjuster, and it sits there doing nothing on any car whose owner drives an automatic and never pulls the lever.
Left alone, the adjuster corrodes. The shoes glaze. Then the car fails to hold on a hill and everyone blames the cable.
We check that mechanism whenever a rear rotor comes off, because the rotor is already in our hands and looking costs nothing. Adjusting it costs a few minutes. Discovering it seized on the day you park on a Seattle hill costs considerably more.
Newer models use an electronic parking brake instead, which brings its own quirk. The rear caliper pistons retract electronically, so a rear brake job on those cars needs the system put into service mode with a scan tool first. Wind the piston back the old fashioned way and you can damage the actuator. It is a small thing that a shop unfamiliar with the platform gets wrong.
Does your current shop know which system your car has?
Ours does, before the wheels come off.
Subaru Brake Repair FAQ
How often do Subaru brakes need replacing?
Fronts commonly go between 30,000 and 50,000 miles around here, rears considerably longer. Hills, towing, and heavy traffic pull those numbers down. Mileage is a hint, and a measurement is the answer.
My brakes shudder at highway speed. Are the rotors warped?
Almost certainly not. True warping is rare. What you are feeling is usually uneven pad material deposited on the rotor face, and it often comes from pads that were never bedded in properly. It is measurable and it is fixable.
Can you resurface my rotors instead of replacing them?
If they measure above the minimum thickness with enough material left to cut, yes. We have a lathe here, so it is a same visit job rather than a special order. If they are too thin we will show you the reading.
Is it safe to replace only the front brakes?
Yes, if the rears measure fine. Brakes are replaced per axle, never per wheel, and the two axles genuinely do wear at different rates on a Subaru.
Do you do brake work on WRX and STI builds?
Yes. Upgraded rotors and higher temperature pad compounds, specified for how the car gets used rather than how it looks.
Other Services
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