I am utterly amazed at how simple it was to replace the front brake pads on my Taurus–it was the easiest brake job I’ve ever done. It took me longer to get all my tools gathered up than it did to replace the driver’s side pads. First I removed the lower bolt on the caliper, then swung the caliper upwards and tied it out of the way with some rope. The brake pads were held in place by the caliper, so with it swung out of the way, they simply fell right out. Then I used a c-clamp to push the piston back into the caliper, then untied it and let it slide down over the new brake pads and reinstalled the bolt. Piece-o-cake!
It took me less than five minutes to do the passenger side from when I removed the wheel to when I lifted it back into place. The longest part of the process is pushing the piston back in. I really should have opened the bleeder valve while I was pushing the piston in, and some brake fluid leaked out of the reservoir under the hood. It was no big deal, and it wasn’t really worth risking air getting in the system and having to bleed the brakes anyway.
The one surprising thing is that the pads cost me over $45. I don’t think I’ve ever spent much more than $20 on a set of brake pads or shoes for any of the vehicles I’ve owned. I should have checked on the price of rear brake shoes while I was at it–I certainly set aside enough time to do both, but only because I was expecting just the fronts to be a pain.