Brake pads and rotors were installed last year April at 50k miles.
Car is currently at 67,000 miles.
Today when I took the car in for transmission fluid exchange, I was told my brake needs attention soon, with measurement of 6mm all around.
I do 98% highway driving and average 9,000 miles a year.
Is this normal ?
6 mm on the pad is still serviceable, quite a bit left. No need to panic at this point. Whether the pads are being consumed too fast depends on how thick they were when installed; usually new pads are in the 10-12 mm range I think. But the ones you had installed might have only been 8 mm. I usually replace pads at 3 mm, but the UK safety test I believes still allows a passing grade at 1.5 mm. Do the wheels seem overly hot after a long-ish drive with not much braking? If so the brakes may be dragging. If only the wheels w/the parking brakes are hot, the parking brakes may just need a little manual adjustment. I’m guessing your pads are actually thicker than 6 mm, and the shop made a measurement mistake or was rounding the number down.
I think this is it. I remember when I just had the rotors installed and went to have state inspection a week later, I was told the pads were 8mm, which caught me by surprise.
I wonder why the dealer would install thin pads ?
6 mm is typical for 17,000 miles of use for that vehicle, this isn’t an “appliance” type vehicle like a Corolla. New brake pads are 12 mm in the front, 10 mm rear. Replacement pads are all the same, the dealer didn’t install thin pads. Factory minimum is 1 mm, dealer recommended minimum is 3 mm.
Perhaps a hasty inspection, the pads were well above minimum specs. Our multi-point inspection reports don’t have a box to select above “8+ mm”, so even new brakes are reported as 8+ mm.
Seems like that would allow for very little exposure to school bus stops or railroad crossings, you use the brakes during those encounters.
That would be 1 minute of city driving for each hour of highway driving.
School buses are close to home, and is why I choose the highway for majority of my commute. Still, I drive locally occasionally to pick up my prescription medications. The train track is a now and then thing.
I’m learning that owning an IS isn’t cheap.
Thanks for letting me know this is how the IS will milk me. At least I can better prepare myself from now on.
Perf pads have more bite and wear out faster. Std pads last longer. And stop car just fine according to manuf.
Do you think switching the fsport pads for the non-fsport pads will be beneficial ?
I know I wouldn’t, brakes are carefully-designed systems. I’d be surprised if they fit, if the Fsport has specific brakes.
Lets just pretend they would fit, which I doubt. Does anyone really want less braking performance? Think first act second.
I agree. Looking at Rockauto, the Fsport has specific pads, rotors, and calipers. No way I’d use something else, fit or not fit.
The AWD F Sport has the base model brake components, the rear-wheel-drive IS350 F Sport comes with performance brakes.
The brake pads are the same size, different friction material.
The guys over at the Lexus club forum claim to swap pads to increase longevity.
I agreed. I didn’t like the idea at all. I’ll just stick to the original and pay more attention to my braking habit.
Like Nevada has said, it’s normal for these cars to eat pads more aggressively than economical cars. The guys over the Lexus club forum said the exact same thing Nevada mentioned here.