Sticky Caliper, Warped Rotor or Sticky Slider Pins?

If you haven’t felt the pulsation and your rotors are spec’d for thickness and there are no deep grooves, visible or felt, then I would start by replacing all the caliper slide pins and boots and flushing the brake fluid. Replace both sides on each axle if you can: you want equal braking action on each side of the car, it would be less of a problem front to back unless there was a significant problem. Pins and boots are inexpensive, available at an auto parts store and/or online. Be sure to use lube grease, not something that spreads around which can cause rubber boots and rubber jackets to bulge. If your pins are original, you will have a very hard time resetting them after the anti-vibration rubber jackets wear. Also be sure to clean off the old grease when replacing the pins.

The sliding points on your brake pad seem completely dry, maybe you had a pad hanging due to lack of lubrication. We lube our slide pins and pads at every oil change as we have found our Subarus (2008+) get stuck on frequent dirt/gravel drives and often require pin replacement at 125-150k.

The thickness of the throw depends on the rotor you have in the vehicle, most are recommended for replacement at 15-16mm on modern Subarus.

New front rotors on your vehicle can be purchased for less than $30 each, after the OEMs are worn, we replace them with Raybestos Element3 (<$40 ea). We use Akebono (OEM), Wagner OEX or Rabestos Element3 packs depending on which is cheaper at the time of stock replacement.

After installing the Autozone Duralast economy rotors and found that the casting left a quarter size hole in one side of the rotor which would have quickly resulted in an explosive failure in our mountainous region. It’s likely a rare occurrence, but I’ll never touch a rotor that’s <$20 new before rebate again.