Brake Pad Life

[vliou]

Wow, I just found out i'm only getting 14,000km's between front brake pad changes!!!

I also just found out i'm supposed to be getting 30,000 MILES!!!

3 dealers, 3 different times...what's going on here?

[Andrew224]

I replaced the original factory pads on my '01 QX4 at 35,000 miles.

Personally, I have found that the dealer has told me that my brake pads needed to be replaced way before they actually needed to be replaced. Brake jobs are simple and are money makers for the dealership and the mechanic. You do the math.

Andrew

[Chris92SE]

I bought my 2001 QX4 with 60k miles and the dealership I bought it from replaced the front pads. I am now at 96k and last time I had the tires rotated, they said the brakes looked fine.

However, in the last couple of weeks, the rear drums have a metal squeak, leading me to believe they need to be replaced. I have never done drums before -- all of my cars have had 4 wheel discs or I never had to replace drums on a truck.

I think brake life depends on the type of driving you do, how you drive and the type of pads you have. There is never going to be a correct answer to brake pad life estimates.

[fueler]

I've done my brakes every 50k miles, changed the rotors at 100k (i thought they were warped but they weren't), i'm on my 3rd set of pads now (R50 has 136k) and they are running great

[Pathy35SE]

Ironically, I just checked the brakes 2 weeks ago for the first time since new while rotating the tires front to rear...

Our Pathy has 55K. The original front pads have reached the halfway point. Still lots of material left. Opened the rear drums to lube and clean and found to my surprise orig. pads that will go to 100K easily. It may be our driving style, but the brakes are doin' great.

The drums can have a tendency to make either scraping/squeaking noises from time to time. This is usually rectified with a thorough cleaning of accumulated brake dust and a lube of the moving parts inside. Noise is not always an indicator of pad replacement.

It takes minutes to remove the wheel, slide the drum off (release parking brake first (!) ) and check pad condition.

Other than an AC fan amp, one new battery, and a set of tires, our Pathy has been sooooo damn reliable and cheap to own.

Gotta love pre-Ghosn fingerprinted Nissans with a J- VIN!

[SnowSurfLax]

Check your manual. I know the owner's manual says to always apply your parking brake to keep the rear brakes in adjustment. That's how Nissan likes to do it.

I smoked a set of brakes in 5 months time by not doing that.

[vliou]

Seriously?!?! Who has heard of this before?

[KoukiS14]

Seriously?!?! Who has heard of this before?

I've heard of it on here, but haven't verified in my manual. I always use it anyway since I don't like the idea of relying on just my parking gear.

If I wasn't mostly naked, I'd go check my manual but it's cold and early still.

[timmack]

go outside anyway, ya big wuss! dont bring the manual inside either, stand out there in the cold and read it! haha jk. yea ive heard that too, for both reasons. saves wear on the transmission and prevents a mishap if it ever happened to pop out of park for some reason and also keeps the back shoes adjusted.

[vliou]

Hmm, I did check the manual, and it doesn't mention anything about this =|

[KoukiS14]

Hmm, I did check the manual, and it doesn't mention anything about this =|

I didn't end up going outside in the buff. . it was real cold this morning. With that said, I still haven't had a chance to verify mine. .

You sure it's not in the back somewhere in the do it yourself section?

[SnowSurfLax]

I had to look for it (had my manual out to see why the ABS light came on this morning) but it's in the Do-it-yourself section in the manual I have, on page 8-20. (1999 QX4 Owner's Manual, printed May 1998, USA).

It's under self-adjusting brakes. This might have changed in subsequent years.

[Buzzman]

Wow, I just found out i'm only getting 14,000km's between front brake pad changes!!!

I also just found out i'm supposed to be getting 30,000 MILES!!!

3 dealers, 3 different times...what's going on here?

Mine: '02 Pathfinder with 174,000 Kms on it. Still running original rear brakes (had them checked last year and they were still over 50%).I'm on my second set of front pads with original rotors...never even been turned.No problems whatsoever. I don't drive it easy either, so I can't figure out why yours is so hard on brakes.(My '03 Sentra is worse than my Pathfinder by the way. I'm doing my third front brake job next week, and it only has 90K Kms. on it.)

[AlabamaDan]

Check your manual. I know the owner's manual says to always apply your parking brake to keep the rear brakes in adjustment. That's how Nissan likes to do it.

I smoked a set of brakes in 5 months time by not doing that.

I've heard this before. I went through brakes pretty quick. Not 5 months, but maybe a year or 12k miles. Remember that aftermarket pads may not las as long as OEM too.

[SnowSurfLax]

Yeah, but I hadn't been using the parking brake for 7 months (since I bought it back then). From what I can figure, the rear brakes were completely out of alignment the entire time I was wasting the pads.

[Andrew224]

I was hearing that metallic scraping noise from the rear drums recently. I assumed the rear shoes needed to be replaced seeing as my truck is going on 9 years old and has 62K miles (original shoes). Popped the rear drums off to find that my shoes have about 75% of the pad left. I sprayed them down with brake cleaner, knocked out all the dust out from the drum and lubed them up... No more sqeak. I'll probably get 150K miles out of those rear shoes!

[JonathanPrem]

Your pads might be 75% but did you measure your drums? I have almost 195km and my rear shoes have about 50% or more but my drums are warn over the maximum.

[Chuck Tribolet]

Wow, I just found out i'm only getting 14,000km's between front brake pad changes!!!

I also just found out i'm supposed to be getting 30,000 MILES!!!

3 dealers, 3 different times...what's going on here?

You should be getting a HELL of a lot better than that. My '01 has about 175Kmiles, 1/3 of which is towing my (brakeless) 2000+ pound boat trailer (withseveral hundred pounds of SCUBA gear in the truck.). I've had to change the front pads twice, the rears, never. I'm getting due to change the frontsagiain, I suspect, but no warning telltale yet.

Chuck

[Andrew224]

You know what Jonathan, I never even thought to check the wear on the drums. I would assume that the pads should be softer material than the drums and wear out faster. I didn't notice there to be that much of a ridge between the surface were the shoes make contact and where they don't.

Either way, there is no squeak anymore. Next time I hear a squeak and check the brakes, I'll spec. the wear on the drums.