I forgot to mention that I sand the pads to break the glaze on the pads if present . Wear breathing protection though as the dust can be dangerous. If heavily glazed pads they have just vastly reduced their coefficient of friction giving you a much harder pedal. Hyundai brake disk pads and their drum brake linings are very prone to this disorder.

I was having some dragging problems on the front brakes of the Honda beater we acquired a year or so ago. It had just had a brake job before we purchased it on the front end.

When I had a look two days ago suspecting at least a sticking caliper. I found instead that the sliders where dry and ungreased. It took the use of a light hammer to get the pads freed up.

I only had some oil at the cottage and really the caliper holders also need to be removed and the slots wire brushes plus some high temperature grease on the sliders etc. The front brakes are not dragging anymore. Still I will take them apart and clean and lube them properly at home before fall.

I assume the brake job was done by some mechanic not caring about doing it properly. It is not rocket science and takes little time to do it properly. Rotors and pads where still pretty fresh. I think a lot of garages just do not care enough even to do the simple stuff properly anymore.. Too many people ignore this issue unless the brakes are really almost totally seized up or just can no longer drive the car. Or have a hard pedal.

It never hurts once in awhile to feel each wheel with a finger of any car for too much heat compared to its opposite side. It really hurts milage and wears parts excessively to operate with less than free brakes. There for example is not much force available to drive the pads back off of the rotors available so all parts must move pretty freely. I have heard the pads are displaced backwards by the sealing ring in the calipers. My belief is it is the force applied by the rotor that has some natural run out that pushes them back. If there is a lack of pad movement available it will just still apply pad pressure to the rotor by them still tracking the run out instead of backing off. Old car brakes should be checked periodically and at least cleaned up and lubricated.