I’ve been replacing brake pads/rotors for over fifty years. And the best advice I can give is replace the brake components with those that meets or exceeds the OEM specifications.
And then make sure that brake pads and rotors are bedded correctly, and you won’t have brake noise.
The brake pad in the picture has about 3 mm of pad remaining, minimum pad thickness is usually 1 or 2 mm. Depending on the type of driving, you may get 5000 km of remaining use from these pads. Service writers typically rush customers into replacing brakes asap.
The wear indicator is shown on the left side of the picture. You can see there is almost 2 mm of distance between the wear indicator and the edge of the pad.
A couple of the reasons service writers push the sale of brakes when they still have some life left is because a lot of customers keep putting off repairs until they get bad enough to do more damage or get dangerous, also it can be more convenient, vehicle is their now and don’t want to think about it again for a while…
But as said above, you have more time, but don’t keep putting it off, if you are one that forgets (life happens) or procrastinates to long, then do them now, but if you will remember to have them done, you have time… And if they all have that much pad left then no safety issues due to the remaining pad left at this time…
Aside from the above advice, if your mechanic showed you that brake pad, and said it was from your car, not sure about the honesty of your mechanic.
Pad thickness can be observed without removing the pads.
True, I’ve always been able to guess-timate my Corolla’s front pad thickness just by removing the wheel and peering through the inspection port. But maybe the mechanic in OP’s case needed to remove the caliper to make sure it is sliding properly and the piston is not stuck. If so, that could be an explanation why the pad was removed.
OP: Did the mechanic say anything about noticing uneven brake pad wear, or there might be something amiss with the calipers? For that, diy’er-me would usually remove the caliper just to be double-safe. In any event the pad in the photo appears to be nearing the end of its useful life and I’d guess it’s a good idea to replace them now.
A ruler would do the trick if the pad has already been removed. But there are special gadgets mechanics have that allow the brake pad thickness to be measured without removing either the caliper or the pads.
Pre trip inspection maybe?
I have seen many mechanics pop a caliper off to be able to show a customer the pad better, a lot of the cars only takes having to remove the bottom bolt to flip the caliper up, takes longer to walk over to your tool box then to pop a pad off… Not much different than pulling a cabin air filter to show a customer…
But there are sometimes good reasons to remove a pad for further inspection, even if the lining thickness is fine
For example, if there are issues with noise when applying the brakes, removing the pads for inspection sometimes reveals that they are, in fact, badly cracked and need to be trashed, imo
If the technician chose the thickest pad for the picture, they would be considered a poor salesperson. I would expect the pad in the picture was the thinnest pad of the bunch, in an effort to make the sale.
This is at least a little bit confusing. “our mechanic” suggests this is someone that you normally take your car to? If so, and you trust them, then follow their advice. But maybe you don’t trust them because you created this post? Since you don’t seem to be a “car person” all you need is a locally-owned, independent shop with a good rep that you trust.
The other thing is just that, if they were already “deep” enough in to have your pads out, then why would they need to schedule a separate appointment for next week? That’s just weird. Or did you make an appointment at a different shop?
As for the 150KM - it would take a lot of really horrible driving to kill those in that many miles. And any responsible shop would make the time to replace them right away (and advise against doing otherwise) if they were that bad. But they’re near the end of their life.
One thing I find odd about the mechanic’s photo is they situated the photo w/the pad facing down, so the wearing part is harder to see. It seems like you’d want that part facing up, on the top. Is there a reason to show it facing down ? Maybe down is actually better but if so I don’t understand why.
You have all your questions answered. May I ask one? These pads are already out so they need to be installed for the vehicle to be driveable even one meter. Whey in the world would they install old pads and then replace them 150km later “at appointment time”?!? Why not install new ones now? Same amount of labor…
Not really, all they did was pop the caliper up and remove 1 pad for show and tell, in order for a shop to properly do the brake job, the caliper bracket needs to come off so the rotor can be properly machined or replaced, the caliper piston has to be compressed, so if you open the bleeder screw then you might have to bleed the brakes, or preform a proper brake flush at this time, the bracket is cleaned and new hardware is installed and everything that needs to be lubed, is lubed and then the caliper bracket is reinstalled after the freshly machined rotor or the new rotor has been properly cleaned from the anti rust stuff that was applied to them of course, then pads and then the caliper itself, and then you have to do the same to the other side as well, then make sure the brake fluid is at the proper level…
Oh yeah, then you have to test drive the vehicle to make sure no noises and they work properly as well as bed the pads and rotors so the vehicle will stop when demanded… That takes much more time then just slapping one old brake pad back on a dirty bracket and pushing the caliper back into place with one bolt…
Real shops do not just pad slap brakes, and even pad slapping still requires time to compress the piston back in it’s bore…
I thought you were an expert in the automotive world, I am surprised that you do not know and or understand the proper way to do brakes and the time difference in labor between the two and this is just a simple brake job… So I beg to differ, the labor is not the same installing all new pads vs just slapping the one pad back in place… I am really shocked with your expertise in the automotive field that you would make such a false statement as the “same amount of labor.”…
Heck, even my 14yo daughter at the time knows how to do a proper brake job…
