I just drove from San Diego to Baltimore, almost 3,000 miles. Before leaving San Diego, I took my car to my trusted mechanics and asked them to check it over for a road trip. They took the wheels off and looked at the brake pads, and said that all four were between 8-12mm. I drove across the country…

That amount of wear would be unusual.

A 3,000 mile road trip on mainly expressways would have minimal wear on your brake pads. Now if you were towing a trailer and did a lot of braking in the mountains, that might wear the pads faster. Otherwise, no the trip didn’t wear out the pads. Either the shop prior to the trip was wrong, the s…

I’ve long suspected Maryland’s car inspection system is inherently corrupt. After all the same guy who inspects your car (for a fee) can repair it. I’ve dealt with this system a number of times and I’ve never seen a used car pass without an additional vig (loan shark term for exorbitant interest p…

Did you ask for the old pads or see that they were actually at 2 mm? They didn’t wear much at all on the trip.

Driving from San Diego to Baltimore usually entails a trip through the Rockies. I’ve seen many people who use up more of thier brake pads going once through the Rocky Mountains than they normally would in a year of driving. However, I have noticed that pads typically last more than 2-3 years. I thin…

Also, actually, come to think of it, there are as many as 3 mountain ranges that you possibly had to drive through. That can mean quite a bit of extra braking, even on the interstates.

The mountain driving could certainly do it. A lady friend of my wife and her husband went to Colorado for a few days and their brakes were flat gone after being up there about 2 days. The vehicle had been looked over before they left on the trip and they were fine then. The final run down Pike’s Pe…

Thanks for all the comments, friends! No, I didn’t think to ask the Maryland shop if I could see the brake pads. Next time… They agreed to pass my car inspection but strongly urged me to get them replaced within the next 3K miles. They didn’t push me to have the repair done at their shop. My gut fe…

The front brakes do about 70% of the braking (possibly more factoring in downgrade braking) so the fronts will generally wear much faster than the rears.

How fast do brake pads wear out?

Maintenance/Repairs

bing August 29, 2011, 2:23am 11

They have lasted me anywhere from 15K to 80K depending upon the type of driving done. So either the first guy was mistaken, you rode the brakes through the mountains, or the second guy was scamming. The easiest way was to just go look at the pads before they replaced them when the wheel was off, or simply ask for the old pads back.

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How fast do brake pads wear out?

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