Who holds the world's record for the longest lasting brakes?-

My late uncle’s lasted him 95,000 miles- Unfortunately, there is no documented proof of this- Mine have lasted me 75,000- Nathan

I once owned a '91 Pontiac LeMans (Daewoo) that still had its original rear brake shoes at 125K miles.

Does that count?

My 1997 Acura 2.2 CL still has its original front brake pads at 106K miles.

Does that count?

I’m sure others will top anything I’ve got.

My 98 gmc sonoma lasted 145000 on the front brake pads and at 180000 the rear brakes have yet to be touched. The straight tread uniroyal tires were finally changed at 152000. No secret, all highway miles, no 4 wheel drive, a weak 4 cylinder engine and an old guy for a driver.

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I live out in the sticks a bit so my cars see mostly open road driving. While I’ve never really logged how long my brakes last I’m sure they’re well up over 100k miles.
It seems to me that I replaced the front pads on my old Lincoln at about 175k miles. My current Lincoln has about 100k miles on the pads and there’s still half the pad left when I last checked them a few weeks ago.

The only thing that surprises me is that the brakes on any of my vehicles last more than 10k miles. My wife thinks that brakes are a ON/OFF part in which the object is to bring a car to a stop as quickly as possible. The word “coast” is not in her vocabulary.

My wifes Accords would get about 100k on the front brakes…and much more on the rears…At the time she was doing a lot of highway driving. The less you use the brakes…the longer they’re going to last.

my 79 has never needed brakes and shows no signs of needing them any time soon.
The catch ?
merely 71k miles on the ticker.

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Back in 1976 a cattle dealer in Missouri got 285,000 miles out of his first set of brakes on a 1970 Chevy six. See May 1976 Popular Mechanics Car Care Guide.

The best I’ve ever done is 80,000 miles was on a 1980 Olds Delta 88 350V8. Mostly highway driving. The shortest I’m aware of was a San Francisco cab driver who had his brakes done every 3 months!

Shortest I know is the guy who delivers the paper…About every 6 weeks in his Explorer

My manual transmission 97 Subaru brakes had 30% of it’s brake pads left according to the dealer at 70k. At 110 k I had an oil seal replaced and had them check the pads again. They said they had 50% of it’s pads left. Seeing it was now growing pads, when I sold it at about 130k, I informed the buyer of this and assume they will never have to be changed. It made a great selling point. I never beat that on any other car I have owned.

My newer cars with traction control eat brake pads if I’m not careful in the winter. Autos have been much harder on brakes too without the ease of engine braking. 60 to 80k is now the norm for me which I now blame on being automatic and these safety devices; and not being a 97 Subaru.

My Jeep has 130,000 on the front pads with probably 30-40% wear left. My rear brakes (factory) had about 160,000 on them when I rebuilt the rear end due to a leaking axle seal.

I drive a mix of city and highway. I anticipate stops and do a lot of downshifting. I’m still on the original clutch, too.

My Toyota Pickup had 98k when I was told I needed new pads for the rear drum brakes. I pretended to be upset, what do you mean I can’t get 100,000 miles out of a set of brakes. The service advisor looked up and we both laughed. 85k on the blazer before all four done, they would have lasted longer but for some reason the inside pads wore faster than the outside.

I have a 2002 GMC Sierra 1500 HD pickup and I am a couple thousand miles away from 200 K miles on the original brake pads with over half the life still left on them!

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That is truly the world’s record from what I see @alternatemail110 … I can’t top that, but I can claim 200K on the rear drum brakes of my Corolla , still sporting the original shoes. I’ve had to replace the front pads several times.

Neighbor had an older car with original brakes on the rear. He was having problems braking straight when braking hard. So he brought it over and I had a look. The rear original brakes with nearly 300k miles had plenty of pad left. However I think the calipers had frozen years ago, so they weren’t really working. Replaced the calipers and put new pads on…much better braking.

I recall a survey in the sixties on long life by Popular Mechanics magazine. There was a cattle dealer in the Mid West who drove mostly in rural areas and had a Chevrolet Biscayne. He reported at over 170,000 miles that his car, a stick shift model,had yet to have a brake job.

Also a limo service I used to employ getting to the airport had Mercury Grand Marquis models. They routinely got between 150,000 and 200,00 miles on a set of brakes since nearly all their driving was highway.

The shortest brake life I heard of was a cab driver in San Francisco who reported doing his brakes every 3 MONTHS!!!

I replaced the ones on my camry at 225K and they still had many miles of life left in them. I would imagine I could have got to 300K. I changed them because I took it apart for inspection and already purchased the pads & shoes. It sounds crazy but I have a long commute and do very little braking. In my 60 mile commute, I likely do less braking than the normal 5 mile city dweller commute. In my 60 miles, I have 7 stop signs and 3 signals in my 60 mile drive. Once I’m on the highway it is 70mph+ and rarely any traffic.

My wifes yaris currently has 250K and still has the original rear shoes. They have about half the material still on them. I prematurely replaced the front pads at 200K when I replaced the struts. Once again, I only replaced them because I already purchased replacements.

The shortest brake life was a rural mail carrier who drove a Subaru. He did his own brake jobs and always used Subaru OEM brake pads and rotors which he bought from us. He would buy 6 sets of pads and 4 rotors at at time.

He would change the pads every 3 weeks and the rotors every 3rd pad change.

His mail route had roughly 550 stops a day plus the stops associated with the personal use of the car. The majority of his route was on the red dirt roads.

It really depends on driving style. I was just driving down US Rt1 above Boston, medium heavy traffic. I watched the car ahead of me apply his brakes frequently, at least once per minute, and over the 10 mile stretch I only had to apply my brakes once. He was tailgating and I kept a fair amount of space in front of me.

But the other reason for brakes to need replacement is rusting brake rotors. Perhaps those above who go 200k between brakes don’t live in the salt belt, or perhaps their rotors are more rustproof than mine.

I own a 2002 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Duramax Diesel.
I just turned 318000 on the original brakes front and rear. This truck has never had a brake job. I recently checked the brakes In December of 2019 and they still look good. I’m hoping to maybe get another twenty or thirty thousand.

Does “longest lasting” mean longest in time, or longest in miles? If a vehicle is driven 750 miles a day on the freeway say, 5 days a week, the brake wear could be very minimum and result in 100’s of thousands of miles without needing new brake parts. 75 miles a day on Boston’s local “roads” during rush hour, not so much.