2014 Ford Edge rear brake problem

[donaldli]

My 2014 Ford Edge is about 51,000 km (about 32,000 miles).

A few weeks ago, the rear right brake was very much overheated and I can smell rubber burning. However, after I stopped and quickly checked then back to road, it was not overheated as before. When back to home, I found the rear left brake was totally worn out, and the rear left rotor was also worn. So I changed all brake pads and rear left rotor.

One day, after a 12 km driving, I found that the rear left brake was overheated and I can smell rubber burning. However, it was not overheated after I went to the road again. Meanwhile, both sides rear brakes were somewhat hotter than front brakes.

I understand that, normally the front brakes will take 70% effect while the rear brakes will take 30%. I thought that the problem might be the parking brake not fully released, even though I released it and confirmed there is no parking brake signal on the dashboard.

I lifted up the vehicle and loosened the parking brake cables to make it one cm longer than before. Then I tried the parking brake and observed two rear brakes. Here are four images showing the left/right brake when parking brake was engaged/ released.

I found that, when parking brake is engaged, on the left rear brake, there is about 2 mm gap between the arm and the baffle (not sure whether arm/baffle are right names...). On the right rear brake, the gap is about 4 mm. When parking brake is released, there is no any gap on the left rear brake, but there is about 2 mm gap on the right rear brake.

PS: the parking brake cables had been loosened to one cm longer than before.

So, I guess there are two problems on my Edge.

1) Regarding the overheated with rubber burning smell, I thought there is something wrong at the parking brake cable or the signal. When it looks like released, but actually not. This made the caliper engaged with the rotor, to make it overheated.

2) Regarding the rea4 brakes hotter than from brakes, because the left rear brake baffle was not installed on the right position (it should be 2 mm more counterclockwise), the left rear caliper cannot be fully retracted, so the brake pad has drag. Even though there are still 2mm gap on the right rear brake, it was not fully retracted because the right side has the same angle to the left side (for some mechanism I cannot say).

Any expert has any comments? Highly appreciated!