# brakes



## nobearings (Jan 16, 2005)

I was wondering if changing the brake pads on my 2004 altima would be the same as changing pads on any other car. I dont know if my buddy if feeding me crap or not. He said that newer vehicles equipped with abs systems need a scanner hooked up to the ecm in order to fully retract the piston into the caliper without damaging the abs system. Was my buddy feeding me a bunch of lies or do you really need special equipment nowadays to do a simple brake job?


----------



## wickedsr20 (Aug 8, 2002)

nobearings said:


> I was wondering if changing the brake pads on my 2004 altima would be the same as changing pads on any other car. I dont know if my buddy if feeding me crap or not. He said that newer vehicles equipped with abs systems need a scanner hooked up to the ecm in order to fully retract the piston into the caliper without damaging the abs system. Was my buddy feeding me a bunch of lies or do you really need special equipment nowadays to do a simple brake job?


Special equipment not needed at all. I changed all four rotors with new pads all around and the only thing that was slightly out of the norm were the little braces that made removing the rears a lil more difficult than doing brakes on the other cars. No problem at all. I just used a c-clamp to retract the pistons back enough to do what I had to do. :fluffy:


----------

