I searched everywhere on tips on the rear brake pad and rotor replacements. Information was lacking so I am posting here for anyone needing to do this. This is not a full tutorial by any means, this is meant for those already familiar with pad and rotor replacement on cars in general.

First of all, it is an easy and straightforward process, you just need to know one thing: the caliper piston cannot be pushed in by normal means. Usually I would use a C-clamp or a pad spreader tool to compress the piston. However, this model requires the piston to be "screwed" in. I used slip joint pliers to grab into the grooves and twisted clockwise (screw in) to compress the piston, see pic below. I initially thought the hill assist feature was locking the piston from going in, but that was not correct. After figuring this out with the help of a mechanic friend, the job was straightforward and similar to most other cars.

Second, I could not get the pad assembly to just flip up by unscrewing the bottom screw. I had to remove the whole assembly, 4 - 14mm bolts total, to access the pads and piston. The videos on youtube are of the 2nd generation, which has a different assembly apparently. Nothing was there for these 3rd gens.

Finally, I have read on the interwebs that the rear pads on these Outlanders wear quicker than typical. Usually the fronts get replaced twice in the time that it takes for the rears to be replaced. My rears have worn faster than the fronts. 1mm left on rear, 4mm on front at about 38k miles. I don't know why this is, but it just seems to be anecdotally correct. I don't know if anyone else has experienced similar.

Hope this helps someone, this info would've saved me hours of frustrating research and trial and error time.

 

Thanks for the info!

 

Definitely agree on the rears wearing faster than the fronts. For me it looks like I will go through 3 sets of rears in the time I consume 2 sets of fronts.