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

[Jerome Stanek]

A friend of mine would get about 9000 miles on a set and rotors on his Subaru. Auto store with the life time warranty would give him new ones after aboul8 or 9 replacements. it was a special left hand drive that they said was made to deliver mail

[Mike Soaper]

Seems to depend on whom you ask. I got new tires from a tire shop a while back and they said I needed brakes, which they'd be happy to take care of at the same time. I declined.

A few months later I took the car to the dealer (Toyota) for a software-update recall and they said I needed brakes, which they'd be happy to take care of at the same time. Nope.

A few weeks after that I took it to an honest brake shop and they said "So why did you think you need brakes?" I could have longer but I replaced them anyway.

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 stenson]

A friend of mine would get about 9000 miles on a set and rotors on his Subaru. Auto store with the life time warranty would give him new ones after aboul8 or 9 replacements. it was a special left hand drive that they said was made to deliver mail

That sounds like a stuck caliper, which was a potential issue on the Subaru's I worked on.

[Brian Elfert]

I have 96,000 miles on my car. I had to replace the rear pads for the first time around 86,000 miles because one of the rear calipers locked up. It turned out the pads had been wearing very uneven on that wheel. I could have gotten more miles out of the pads if not for the uneven wear and the caliper locking up. I replaced the rotors too because they were pretty bad and they are so thin to start with now you can't do anything with them. I suspect the front brakes are due for work for the first time pretty soon. I like to accelerate gently and coast up to red lights.

A buddy of mine has to replace his wife's brakes about every ten thousand miles. She treats the accelerator as an on/off switch and waits until the last second to slam on the brakes.

[Andrew Joiner]

My wife just had a brake job done because the mechanic said "You'll need it in about 10 to 20 k miles". She has 70,000 miles on her car.
I'm a lot more frugal than her so I don't want to get it done if I don't need it.

Is it safe to wait till I hear some screeching from the wear strips?

Thanks for the replies. Very helpful.

[Edward Weber]

You can wait until it starts to squeal, if that's your preference. At 90k you're going to need the rotors resurfaced anyway for the new pads.
Please keep in mind, that brakes are not something to put off too far or go cheap on. They are the main safety system in your car.

[Rob Luter]

All of them. Seriously though, between 60k and 80k on the last few vehicles. When I was a kid it was every 20k. Of course when I was a kid a car with 80k miles was in the scrapyard (rust belt resident).

[Mike Soaper]

You can wait until it starts to squeal, if that's your preference. At 90k you're going to need the rotors resurfaced anyway for the new pads.
Please keep in mind, that brakes are not something to put off too far or go cheap on. They are the main safety system in your car.

Yup, the woah'n is more important than the go'n.

I realize some folks have limited resources, but I really don't understand those who use the cheepest ($12?) "economy" no name pads off of the internet to stop a 1-2 ton vehicle at 55mph

[Earl McLain]

A friend of mine would get about 9000 miles on a set and rotors on his Subaru. Auto store with the life time warranty would give him new ones after aboul8 or 9 replacements. it was a special left hand drive that they said was made to deliver mail

That sounds like a stuck caliper, which was a potential issue on the Subaru's I worked on.

Sounds more like a rural mail carrier making 500+ stop/day 5 days a week. Just ran into the lady who was our carrier for the past 15 or so years--she just transferred to a different rural route that gets issued a USPS vehicle. She said the cost to drive her own was well over the reimbursments she got for doing so, hence the change in routes that she otherwise didn't want to make. She was awesome--and was great delivering flat rate boxes full of wood!!

[mike stenson]

Sounds more like a rural mail carrier making 500+ stop/day 5 days a week. Just ran into the lady who was our carrier for the past 15 or so years--she just transferred to a different rural route that gets issued a USPS vehicle. She said the cost to drive her own was well over the reimbursments she got for doing so, hence the change in routes that she otherwise didn't want to make. She was awesome--and was great delivering flat rate boxes full of wood!!

My wife wasn't a rural carrier, nor was a friend of ours. Both had that issue on 2010ish Subarus. I remain unimpressed with them in general.

[Brian Elfert]

You can wait until it starts to squeal, if that's your preference. At 90k you're going to need the rotors resurfaced anyway for the new pads.
Please keep in mind, that brakes are not something to put off too far or go cheap on. They are the main safety system in your car.

The rotors are so thin from new on my car that there is no resurfacing them. I doubt they are over 1/2" thick. They don't have the vents between the two sides like a lot of rotors. They are just a flat disk with a bump out in the center to go over the hub.

I spent a pretty penny on brake parts for just the rear brakes on my car. I spent around $500 (with shipping and tax) on pads, rotors, and calipers. I did the work myself with some help from a neighbor.

[Paul F Franklin]

Curious how many of you flush and replace brake fluid per recommended maintenance interval (often every 30k miles)?

[Jim Becker]

Curious how many of you flush and replace brake fluid per recommended maintenance interval (often every 30k miles)?

It's on my vehicle's published maintenance schedule at 30K intervals and yes, I get it performed. Brake fluid does tend to absorb moisture, so that change interval helps deal with it. For folks who drive much lower miles per year, this one is probably a good idea to do at the "time" interval rather than the miles interval on the published schedule. It's not a real expensive service, either, for all of us that do not "wrench".

[Alan Lightstone]

Just replaced them on my wife's E43AMG Mercedes after 21K miles. Crazy low mileage. Cost $3K. In every Lexus or Tesla I ever owned they lasted the life of the car for me (~100K miles).

[Michael Schuch]

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.