How many miles do you get out of your car brakes?

[Kent A Bathurst]

"How many miles do you get out of your car brakes?"

That's like how long is a string? Back in the day, my BMW E39 had a stick, sport suspension, and performance tires good for summer weather only.

One season per set of 4 tires. 2 yrs per set of brakes. No idea how many miles that was. I never looked at the odometer, and I never looked at the speedometer - the tach and implied torque curve were all that mattered.

I loved throwing that car around the back roads.

[Lee DeRaud]

I always do my own brakes. A brake job is one of the most overly inflated service price wise for what you get. If you can change a tire you have done 50% of a brake job.

That does depend on the car. My Corvette (C5...I suspect the C6s had the same design) had a caliper bolt that was almost inaccessible unless the car was on a lift, and was spec'd for 115-120ftlb of torque. Total PITA.

[George Yetka]

Many current generation vehicles are using "stickier" pads which often require replacement much sooner than folks are used to. That's the case with what I drive. (They also require a more careful break-in period to avoid uneven deposits on the rotors which makes it seem like there is a "warp", but there is not. When I sold the MY12 Grand Cherokee Overland Summit in 2019, it had 113K miles on it. The front brakes were original. The rears would likely have made it that far, too, but a broken caliper bolt at about 88K miles require replacement of the rears. I generally get good brake life as I don't actually use them as much as some folks do...I coast up to lights and rarely do any hard braking. So unlike some folks who have had repeated issues with the "sticky" brakes on the Ascent I drive these days, mine keep going. The MY19 had 36K on when I traded it last year and the brakes were just fine. I'm expecting the same with the MY23, again, because of how I drive.

Hers definitely warp. To the point they are uncuttable

[Tom M King]

200k for me on the dually.
20k on my wife’s car.

Either one a 20 minute job for me.

[Doug Garson]

Different horses for different courses.

And maybe slightly different driving styles?

[Lee DeRaud]

And maybe slightly different driving styles?

Also I'm guessing that the people with 6-digit pad life are doing a lot of freeway rather than stop-and-go.

[Larry Edgerton]

"How many miles do you get out of your car brakes?"

That's like how long is a string? Back in the day, my BMW E39 had a stick, sport suspension, and performance tires good for summer weather only.

One season per set of 4 tires. 2 yrs per set of brakes. No idea how many miles that was. I never looked at the odometer, and I never looked at the speedometer - the tach and implied torque curve were all that mattered.

I loved throwing that car around the back roads.

Same for me with my sports cars, go through them pretty fast. But my work trucks, they last forever. I am so used to carting things around in the back that I don't want to move that I brake and turn softly. I change them out at about 70k, but they still have a lot left.

[Larry Edgerton]

That does depend on the car. My Corvette (C5...I suspect the C6s had the same design) had a caliper bolt that was almost inaccessible unless the car was on a lift, and was spec'd for 115-120ftlb of torque. Total PITA.

Agreed, PITA! Also, a lot of the cars in the last few years need to be flashed after a break job.

[Jerome Stanek]

This depends on where you drive. If you drive all the time in a city your brakes are not going to last as long as if you drive cross country. I could get over 100,000 on my truck when I was working and that is pulling a trailer. But I was putting on 500 mile a week but driving 400 miles on the interstates and may be 100 once I got to the job site.

[Curt Harms]

Many moons ago I had a car recalled to replace a rear brake cylinder. After dropping the car off I got a call from the service department saying while we had the car on the lift we checked your brakes and they need replacing, I was a bit surprised about that and told them not to, even though they were persistent the brakes needed replacement.

After a few weeks I heard a front brake wear tang screeching as if the brakes did need replacing, upon investigating there was to me plenty of pad material remaining but the brake wear tang had some shiny marks on it just like needle nose pliers would make if they were used to bend the tang towards the rotor

Mike, I'm sure those shiny marks were the result of something besides a dishonest shop. There used to be a shop(s) that only did inspections. They'd note if anything needed to be repaired/replaced then you'd take your vehicle to your usual shop. They didn't last long, there just wasn't enough money in doing only inspections.

I ran into a 'situation' with a shop for a couple issues with my Ford Ranger. One seems fairly common, the cabin fan runs continuously on low setting and higher speeds are selectable. The speeds are controlled by a resistor on which the lowest speed tends to fail because it's always energized. Their estimate on that was reasonable. The second issue is that the driver's door lock seems jammed. I had previously removed enough of the inside door panel to be able to access the rod that operates the door locking mechanism and it moved freely pointing to the lock itself as being the problem. This shop's estimate included replacing the electric door locking mechanism for around $275. That didn't sound right to me so got on Youtube and found that replacing the door lock is trivial though I'd end up having to use a separate key for the new lock. I think I'll talk to a lock shop to see if there's a practical way to rekey the new lock.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Wife's car, not many. Same with tires. My truck and van, 2-3 hundred thousand miles. On my old Honda Civic, I had a couple tires that went over 100K miles.

[Larry Edgerton]

Makes a lot of difference where you live. For me its 10 miles to town with two stops. City driving will not be that way.

[Brian Elfert]

Wife's car, not many. Same with tires. My truck and van, 2-3 hundred thousand miles. On my old Honda Civic, I had a couple tires that went over 100K miles.

What kind of tires are you running that go 200,000 to 300,000. Semi truck tires can go longer than most car tires, but even they only last around 100,000 miles.

I try to be gentle on my vehicle, but I don't get anywhere close to 100,000 miles out of a set of tires. I will likely get over 100,000 miles on my front brakes though. My rear brakes had to be replaced at 85,000 miles only because a caliper locked up.

[roger wiegand]

120 to 150K miles on the ICE cars, 30-40K miles in my F350 that gets driven fully loaded-- 24,500 lbs, often in hilly country. I've touched the brakes maybe three times in the first year of owning the Tesla, I expect the brakes to be the last thing to go on that car.

[John Lifer]

Have a friend who drives really REALLY conservative. He's gotten over 150K on original brakes on a couple of vehicles. But it depends upon your terrain.