Why does the Left-rear caliper fail rather than the Right?

[brokencase]

"The cable is not moving freely over the tightening cam - maybe it's even rust-seized in place. It needs to either be lubed or replaced. Checking this is now on my list of things to do - probably this Spring."

I'm with you on that. I should have performed brake cable adjustment and lubrication while I was under the car playing with half-shafts and exhaust this past year.

[Ed Lijewski]

The answer(s) are here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicAdvice ... 2BkFuUAQAA

YMMV

[DPDISXR4Ti]

The answer(s) are here:

An interesting theory. It could also explain why the left rear wheel-well lip tends to rust out ahead of the right. I'm not so sure I buy it though. If anything I'd think there might be more salt piled up in the slush on the right side of the road as the crown of the road gradually moves things that way.

[Ed Lijewski]

The answer(s) are here:

An interesting theory. It could also explain why the left rear wheel-well lip tends to rust out ahead of the right. I'm not so sure I buy it though. If anything I'd think there might be more salt piled up in the slush on the right side of the road as the crown of the road gradually moves things that way.

The rear arch liners near the lips too easily accumulate debris eventually preventing them from self-cleaning, even say during heavy rainfall. Whichever side lip.picks up and retains debris crumbs or even mud which then dries hard is inevitably likely to foster hidden corosion.

Note that our Brit fans Granadas/Scorpios seldom if ever see salted roads yet both rear lips commonly corrode.

YMMV

[brokencase]

I see no valid reason for one side being more vulnerable than the other, calipers or otherwise.
The sample sizes that you are basing your conclusions upon are way too small.

Furthermore it would only take a small bias to one side that would lead to spares being depleted first to that side. But it does not really mean anything. For example, because most often the cars are driven with just the driver in the vehicle and this places a slight bias to the left caliper, then therefore there is a 0.1% chance that the left caliper will fail first. Big deal

But let's say Ed thinks it is 0.2 % bias. How many cars of similar mileage would we have to sample to prove that Ed is right?
Answer: somewhere around 20,000

It is like the poles for voting. Someone comes on TV and states "We sampled 1200 voters and we find Trump is leading 54 to 46 percent.
But the margin of error is like 5 percent! Why? because the sample size is too small.

And you for dang sure haven't even sampled 1200 Scorpios with regard to caliper bias.