why did rear brake pads wear out with only 20,000 miles.
Because manufacturers have changed the brake systems to work the rear brakes much harder to save the front brake pads. They prevent the rears from locking by using the ABS system to solve that.
For folks that are not very hard on brakes or don’t live in hard-brake-use cities, the rears now wear out before the fronts. It used to be the other way 'round.
For some reason the rotor with a built in drum for the emergency brake, really seems to collect salt in the rust belt. Most of the car dealers around here are pushing yearly, disassemble, clean and relube brake service for about $120 an axle. Neither my 2012 Camry or my sons 2011 Sonata made it past 16,00 miles on the rear brakes and I had to replace the left rear caliper no my Camry at that time. My Camry was parked on the street most days then because I had to do that to get my van out and the left side gets all the salt sprayed on it by the salt trucks.
When he moved to Flodida, the Sonata mever needed another brake job before it got totaled, 6 years later.
Yes, but it wasn’t universal. For instance, my brother’s '64 VW bug needed its rear brakes replaced almost twice as often as the front brakes.
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Makes sense! Rear engined, rear wheel drive car, moderate braking, rears wear more.
Comment to oldtimer… whether in Ohio or Florida, my truck wears out rear brakes first. The drum in hat parking brake doesn’t work in Florida any better than it did in Ohio! Junk!