I’ve been driving for over 30 years. I’ve owned a heck of a lot of cars. Also, I get a vehicle to drive at both of my jobs. At my job as a police officer we have had Fords for the last 17 years, Plymouths before that. My employment with a consulting firm has provided me Ford & Dodge vehicles for 16+ years.
My personal vehicles have mostly been Fords, with a few foreign makes that I bought for the kids to use.
My point is, I know cars, and about their maintenance. I have never had a car that went less than 50K before it needed brakes.
However, for the first time EVER, both my wife and I are driving GM makes, both 2004 models. This is because we are a supplier to GM at the consulting firm and the discounts were fantastic.
In July my wifes truck needed brakes at 27,000. Her miles are split equally between highway & city. Last week my brakes needed to be replaced. 29,000, 90% highway miles with very little stop-n-go driving.
Of course, brakes aren’t covered by warrenty unless there is a "proven"defect.
This just doesn’t seem right. Most of my cars needed brakes at around 70K or more. Hell, I had a 1994 Tempo that went 134K on the original factory brakes. (They were grinding like hell the last 4000 miles, but that’s besides the point).
27 & 29K just doesn’t seem right. Driving conditions considered, how long should a set of factory brakes be lasting?
My last car (04 Cavalier) had about 85,000 miles on it and I think I changed the brakes on it 3 times, and maybe the rotors once. So your 25 to 30k sounds about right.
It doesn’t sound right to me. I was able to find the records on some cars we had
(a '96 Toyota, a 98 Suzuki, and a 2000 Nissan Maxima). They were traded in at 45,000, 61,000, and 38,000 respectively. No brake jobs on any of them.
According to the donation sheet I found the '94 Ford Tempo had 131K not 134 like I previously posted. But no brakes jobs on it…ever!. The only service that car ever had was a clutch safety switch at 80K, and a clutch at 95K.
According to a service sheet I looked at on saturday, 2 of our squads got brakes at 45 and 41k.
60k-80k is typical. I put about 100k on my last car (Subaru Legacy), then had them replaced by some fool who didn’t lube the pad guides so one got cocked and started grinding on the disc at 12k. After replacing both discs (too much damage on the one side to turn down) and putting on some aftermarket performance pads myself, the pads lasted another 90k until I sold the car (and presumably are still going).
Brakes that last <30k miles? Pathetic. But then its not so bad for a GM product, 'cause you can co-schedule the brake job with one of the regular water pump, alternator, ECU, oxygen sensor, u-joint, and fuel pump replacements. (Bitter memories of 80’s-era Chevy/Pontiac cars have left me with a slighly bitter taste about GM quality. “Like a rock,” indeed; only if your rock is made of gypsum.)
I think obviously a lot of it is going to depend on the quality of the vehicle equipment, the weight and your driving style.
I brake pretty conservatively, beginning a ways before when I’ll need to stop. I put 110K on a lighter weight Jeep Cherokee before getting new pads and even then it didn’t really need them, I just figured it was crazy not to for a relatively insignificant cost. For a much heavier Lexus SUV they were needed after around 80. For a heavy Mercedes that I bought w/ 50K, it’s now at 135K and I’ve never had them worked on and it’ll stop on a dime. My Porsche though, the Cayenne, they were replaced at 20K, which the service guy said was normal. High performance parts aren’t going to last as long.
I had a Ford ZX2 for a while, then I gave it to my son who got into a [not his fault] accident at approx. 24k. No brake job.
My Mustang GT had 33k on it when I “sold” it to him for the insurance money to replace the ZX2. He drove it for about a year (miles unkown to me) before he sold it. No brake jobs.
Christ, we had an '88 Yugo once (it’s a long story why we had one of those, but we got it brand new from the dealer for $3200) and it went 87K before the engine decided to be a Mission: Impossible tape. Some minor work on the boots & tie rods, but no brake jobs.
My boss had a Saab once with over 250K on it. He used to brag how he was only on it’s 3rd set of brakes.
Was I lucky with the other cars, or is the low miles brake thing a GM problem?
I have a '99 Toyota Camry with over 70,000 miles on the current brakes. I just had them checked at a Goodyear store, and they said I had 10-25% left on them. I drive 20,000 miles per year, mostly in-town.
Auto mfrs are cutting costs in many ways nowadays. One of the ways is to use thinner brake rotors and less braking material in the standard brakes. Beyond that, people complain a lot of about brake noise and grinding, and will take the cars back to the dealer many many times if they hear noise from the brakes.
Since asbestos became illegal to put in brake pads back in the 80s, most brakes are made of a semi-metallic material. This tends to generate more noise and squeals than the old asbestos variety, so in order to get the noise down and reduce complaints, they will use softer materials, which resultsin a much quicker wear of the brake pads.
Thinner rotors have less mass (it’s part of the unsprung mass, so it has less effect on handling, but still) and cool more quickly. You’d prefer to have the rotors as thin as you can make them without warpage for those reasons. (The stopping force doesn’t actually come from the friction contact between the pad and rotor itself, but rather from a semi-liquid layer of pad material that adheres to the disc and the pad itself. Cool stuff, eh?)
I don’t know about using less brake material, but the bottom-of-the-line pads you get at the auto store (and probably the OEM pads on cheaper cars) are much softer than mid-grade pads or the old asbestos-based pads. The high performance ceramic pads have more grab, but wear through faster and tend to be more noisy.
In my experience the initial factory pads usually last from 50K-90K miles. Replacement pads usually last from 15K-50K miles. Those are general observations that cover maybe 80% of cases, with no particular pattern that relates to vehicle manufacturer or type.
With the first set of pads every part of the braking system - heck, every part of the car - is new, so I don’t find it odd that those pads generally last longer than replacements. It’s not cost-effective to replace every part that might enhance pad life.
While there are many variables, one of the biggest for replacement pads is the quality of the linings. There are many quality grades, from mediocre to stellar, priced accordingly.
As far as the OP, those mileages are way below average, and it’s not something I’ve seen on GM cars as a whole. You may find that premium-grade aftermarket pads will last longer.
The use of semi-metallic linings is not related to the discontinuation of asbestos, and preceded it by a long shot. The engineers’ choice of semi-metallic type, with or without asbestos, has to do with the operating temperature of the linings and rotors for a given vehicle. When first introduced, semi-metallic linings tended to be noisier than non-metallic ones, which led some people to replace them with non-metallic ones, often at the expense of optimum brake performance. It is wise to make sure that replacement pads are specified for the vehicle by either the car manufacturer or the pads manufacturer. Just because you can get pads of a non-specified type that will fit doesn’t mean they’ll work properly.
The current trend is to ceramic linings, which seem to excel in performance, durability, and longevity. Naturally, they aren’t the cheapest option.
Quitcherbitchin! I would be thrilled to get 25,000 miles from a set of brake pads! I just checked my records and in the four years (to the day!) that I’ve owned my current car, I’ve changed the front pads eleven times and gotten an average of 3,500 miles per set. And unlike your brake pads, which probably cost you about $30 per axle, or maybe $75 for top level pads, my last set of pads cost me $242. Just for the fronts!
I’ve replaced the rear pads five times, and the front rotors twice. All told, I’ve spent about $1,900 on brake pads and rotors for my car since getting it four years ago today. (That’s just the price of the parts. I do my own brake work.)
Of course, there’s a reason why I go through brakes so quickly. Here’s me not using the brakes at Virginia International Raceway.
So maybe this will make you feel a little better about getting “only” 27,000 miles. It could be a lot worse.
But seriously, how did you know you needed new brakes at 27K? Was it because a mechanic told you you needed them, or was it based on your own inspection? Did the same shop and the same mechanic diagnose both cars’ brakes? Is it possible that someone at the garage is scamming you? Did you see the pads that were removed?
Also, you haven’t been very specific about the vehicles in question. Knowing that would be helpful. For instance, if you’ve been used to owning Tauruses and are now driving an Escalade, that might explain a more frequent need for brakes.
I got estimates from 4 different places. The dealer was the cheapest at $335 including tax and labor
Of course. They were shot when I saw them, and I saw them different times at different businesses. Also, they were grinding and whistling like crazy.
Over the last few years some of the cars we’ve had include a '96 Toyota Corolla, a a 1991 Murcury Topaz, 1993 Ford Tempo, A 1994 Ford Tempo, A 98 Suzuki Vitara, a 2000 Nissan Maxima, a 2003 Mustang Mustang GT, and 2003 Ford ZX2. We also had some leased vehicles, but I don’t count them as almost all of them were 2 year, 24k leases. After turning them in I have no idea how long the brakes lasted.
(up until quite recently there were 5 drivers in our home. Now theres only 2). As previously mentioned the vehicles at my one job consist of Ford Crown Vics, the vehicles at my other consist of Dodge Caravans.
The vehicles my wife & I drive now are a Chevy Trailblazer and a Olds Alero GLS.
The largest single factor in brake wear is located between the pedal and the seat back.*
The second largest factor is where the car is driven.
To illustrate my first point let me tell you about Dr. P. Dr. P had a Jag. Everybody else that had a Jag got between 22,000 and 30,000 miles on a set of pads. Dr. P? He wore them out every 7,500 miles like freakin clockwork. Furthermore, Dr. P would whine, and get the factory to pay for the brake job.
One morning Dr. P was dropping off his car when the rep from our other car line shows up. The rep sees Dr. P leave and asks
“Oh I see Dr. P has a Jag now. Does he still wear out the front brakes every service, then whine and make Jag buy them?”
Us: :eek: How do you know him?
“I used to work for BMW and had to buy him new brake pads every service.”
So that afternoon, I was leaving for a test drive as Dr. P was picking up his car. I decided to follow him.
Dr. P leaves the light, Foot flat to the floor. The technical term is Wide Fucking open. Accelerate to 60 mph (city street!) About 150 feet before the red light BRAKE LIKE HELL! When the light turns green lather rinse repeat.
Holy Christ, after following him, the amazing part is that his brakes managed to make it to 7,500 miles.
To illustrate my second point, I worked at three dealerships for one car line. At the first, people got about 20,000 miles on the average on a set of front pads.
The next dealer was in West LA where there is a stop light on every corner. The average went to 15,000 miles. The third dealer was in a suburban area, where the stop lights were all about 2 miles apart. Everybody got 30,000 miles or more on a set of pads.
Getting back to the OP, some of the mileages I see here for brakes are way, way above anything I have ever seen in the shop. Depending on the type of driving, 30K can be pretty respectable life expectancy. Also don’t forget the Trailblazer is a very heavy vehicle. Takes a lot of brake to stop that sucker. The Alero? I got nothin other than I expect the brakes are small to reduce weight and improve gas mileage.
*Speaking on behalf of every mechanic everywhere, have you ever driven down the highway and seen a guy with his brake lights on all the time? That’s a guy that uses his left foot to brake. We love that guy. He is putting our kids through college.
My numbers are based on modern disc brakes, compact car (~3000 lbs), and reasonable (slightly aggressive, not left-foor-brake-riding) driving. For a larger vehicle like a truck or SUV, or more aggressive driving, obviously lifetime is going to be substantially less. (What do the smaller Volvos like the S40 typically come in at?)
Don’t talk to me about drum brakes. I don’t ever want to see one of those damned things again.
Stranger I don’t doubt in the least your numbers. I’m just saying that most people don’t get that kind of mileage out of their brakes. You’re a doper after all. That makes you hipper, smarter, and means you get better brake life than most.
As far as the S40 goes, I have to ask some of the boys. I don’t do brake jobs anymore, so I’m not sure.
My saab has gotten 50k on the front, first set, 60k (and counting) on the second pair of front. I hear a little squeaking, so it might be time to get new ones. My rears have gotten 78k on the first set. My secret? I don’t break. I coast all the time and I’m getting pretty ridiculous gas mileage (34 mpg+) My friend has said that I’m putting too much stress on the car (because I don’t rarely brake on ramps or around corners), and that’s what causes my perceived alignment problems and uneven tire wear. Is this true? My one alignment job has been cheaper than my brake jobs, but my tires (like my brakes, high performance, apparently), are really expensive. Would it be more cost effective to brake more?
How does one actually break in break pads? My friend’s fiance said that I have to accelerate to about 60 mph, and then brake as hard as I can to a stop, and repeatedly do it, but decrease the speed at which to break by 10 mph each time. This sounds like Dr P’s jag problem (and how are jags, in general, btw? I was thinking of getting one, but I don’t like being hassled with a lot of repairs).
I doubt that’s affecting alignment. It could affect tire wear. I think it would be tough to sort out cost effectiveness - without knowing what percentage of tire wear can be attributed to your driving stye, there’s not much to work with.
The break-in procedure I recall involved multiple vigorous stops, but not at such high speeds. It’s pretty much obsolete, though, as today’s pads (at least the better quality ones) do not require break-in.
No, his problem was he constanly used the brakes to the max.
manual transmission here-I get >100 K miles on a set of pads. my wife (A/T) gets about 36,000 miles (stop and go driving). Question: every German car I see (VW, BMW, M-B) has front wheels that are BLACK with yucky brake dust!
The reasons for “bedding-in” brake pads are 1) to lay down an even layer of pad material on the rotor, and 2) to mature the pad material, and cook out the resins used to form and bind it.
Uneven deposition of pad material on the rotor, which can happen if pads are not bedded in properly, is the leading cause of brake vibration and shudder, and is frequently mistaken for a “warped disc.” In fact, brake discs are rarely if ever actually warped. Famous racing expert Caroll Smith says that in 40 years of racing, “I have never seen a warped brake disc. Every case of ‘warped brake disc’ that I have investigated, whether on a racing car or a street car, has turned out to be friction pad material transferred unevenly to the surface of the disc.”
The frequent “cure” for “warped” discs is to turn them on a lathe, but this often provides only a temporary fix if the pad material is again deposited unevenly afterwards. And because it makes the discs thinner, it also shortens their life unnecessarily.
Proper bedding is much more important on a high-performance/race car than an ordinary street car. When you’re coming to the end of a straightaway at 130 mph, you don’t want your brakes to start shaking like crazy. So I always bed in my new pads. I don’t know if mechanics routinely bed in pads on street cars they work on. I suspect not. But it’s still a good idea. With ordinary light use, the pads may lay down a fairly even layer of material over time. But if, in the first few days or weeks, you brake hard and really heat them up, you could create an unevenness that causes vibration. Bedding in is a simple way to avoid that, and to increase the life of the pads.
