I'm a bit undecided on how to proceed with my current situation, so I'd like some thoughts and inputs.

First some background: I drive a 2001 mazda 626. It's my first and only car, and I've been driving it for soon to be 6 years, -about 20k km per year. So far it has given me very little trouble and not much in terms of repairs, and I've grown rather fond of it. Every year I get the oil and filters changed, as well as an overall inspection to catch any potential problems. The two times it has been necessary to change something of the brakes I've done it myself. The first time, which was immediately after buying the car, my uncle helped me out and showed me how to do it. Changing the brake pads and brake discs that is. An additional bit of info is that my finances at this specific moment are tight to say the least, but it should ease up a bit after new years and through the spring, anything unexpected not withstanding. I live in Norway, with the driving conditions that are there (snow, ice, salt, etc. as well as never going much above 90km/h). You'll have to excuse any weird terminology, I don't really talk about cars in english much.

The problem: As the title says, it's the brakes. I'll start at the beginning. The summer 2023 I had to change the brake pads on the front wheels ( \~4 years since the last time), after getting the lovely warning scraping sound. I was a bit too slow and it has scraped the disk a little as well, but not enough to be a problem (as far as I know). The brake pads on the right were pretty much gone, which was not the case on the left side. I also noticed the warning sound would sometimes show up when turning to the right, even without braking. Conclusion at the time: The caliper on the right wheel might have lost some function. It might not be worth fixing on my (very old) car as long as it only lags a little.

The summer of 2024 a slight wobble started showing up very sporadically. I was told it was most likely a deformity in one of the front wheels (which I now doubt). I have now swapped on the winter tires, and it will still wobble every so often, though a little more noticeable now than half a year ago, so it's not the wheels themselves. I had the car at a repair shop a couple weeks ago (to get a belt swapped), and they remarked that the brakes on the right wheel were touching a little, which was something I already knew, and that I'll have to swap the break pads sooner rather than later. I can tell when the brakes are lagging a bit, and can "fix it" by stopping the car and turning the wheel all the way to the left. Stopping by the side of the road where I drive is not at all a problem btw. What I have noticed recently is that the brakes lagging, and the car wobbling, coincide. It was probably like that all along, but not noticeable enough that I'd sense both at the same time. The wobble has also become noticeable in the steering wheel fairly recently, when it does happen. Speed only has an effect on the frequency.

So. Is it likely that it is the slow caliper causing the wobble? If there's something more expensive it really isn't worth fixing on this car, so I'd rather not swap out all of the brakes only to find out there's a bigger problem. The two repair shops haven't found anything the three times it's been in since I swapped the pads last time. I've gotten an estimate from a shop for swapping out the calipers at the front, and the pads and disks on all four wheels (there's some rust building up on one of the back wheels). It's quite frankly more than I can afford right now, and I question if it's worth it. It's more than I paid for the car. I have considered swapping the disks and pads myself, and only have the repair shop do the callipers, as I really don't feel confident in swapping those out myself (unless it's surprisingly easy?). The European periodic control is coming up next summer. You never know, there could be something uncovered, too expensive to fix. The option I'm currently leaning toward is swapping the break pads now, and wait until the control is done in half a year before swapping out everything. Of course, as long as it doesn't worsen noticeably. So far it's been a very slow change. I can tell when it lags, and I've avoided the wheel getting any hotter than lukewarm on my 1-2 hour drives, at most. Doing this would avoid getting expensive work done now, only to have something else show up on the control. I'd also be able to change out the pads and disks, myself, in liveable temperatures. I don't have a garage I can heat. -10 is not great for working with metal.

What are your thoughts reddit?