front and rear brake pad wear

[huffmuds9320]

I always thought that the front pads will wear out much faster than the rear brake pads. Most of the cars my family owned were disc up front and drum brake in the rear. Seems like the rear brakes will last at least 2-3 front brake pad changes. My 02 VW Jetta is the only car in my fleet with 4 wheel disc.

I recently changed the front brake pads on my VW Jetta at 60,000 miles (original pads). It does have a front wear sensor and was getting close to cutting the sensor. I replaced it with a set of Wagner ThermoQuiet. While inspecting the rear brakes I noticed it was somewhat close to the amount of wear of the front. I'll replace the rear as well so I ordered at set of Bendix CT-3 pads for the rear. Just wondering if its normal to have even wear for front and rear? Or do drum brakes for the rear generally last longer? Thanks.

 

[friendly_jacek]

Most cars used to have overbuilt rear brakes. Many car makers fixed that glitch.

 

[The Critic]

It's not uncommon to see rear pads wear out sooner. Just look at the rear brake bias on many cars nowadays.

 

[bdcardinal]

It really depends on application. I have noticed on Mazda 3's that I seem to sell rear pads about 3 times as much as front pads.

 

[JHZR2]

A rear brake bias seems to be more and more common.

 

[rationull]

Not to mention rear rotors and pads tend to be quite a bit smaller than the fronts, compounding the effect of any front/rear brake force distribution.

 

[bvance554]

My Subaru goes through rear brakes twice as fast as the front brakes. I had a Saturn once with over 240k and it still had the original brake shoes.

 

[Clevy]

Traction control is the primary culprit on a rwd vehicle.
When the rear tires start spinning the ecu compensates by retarding the timing to lower output,restricting volume of fuel per injection event and applying the brake to the offending(spinning) tire. Over time these extra caliper compression events will wear the pads and accelerate a pad replacement event.

I saw a commercial about VW talking about how if the car senses rain the ecu will command a caliper compression event to heat up in an attempt to dry the caliper and improve the vehicles stopping ability.
I'm not sure how I feel about my car being able to stop without input from the operator.
Convenient for the police though

 

[charbaby]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
A rear brake bias seems to be more and more common.


I have noticed this with our 3 FWD - 4 wheel disk vehicles. I can replace the rear pads 2-to-1 compared to the front.

With rear drum setup, the drum brakes seem to last a loooooog time.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: friendly_jacek
Most cars used to have overbuilt rear brakes. Many car makers fixed that glitch.


haha, you got it. One look at the bicycle sized rear brakes on most modern cars and it's easy to see why they leave so quickly. Weight goes up and brakes get smaller? Hello?

Add to this the excitable stability control systems and you can easily see what happens.

It's interesting to note that even our heaviest fleet vans now easily go 100k miles on original parts. Truck brakes have improved dramatically in the last 20 years as far as service life goes...

 

[bigjl]

Originally Posted By: The Critic
It's not uncommon to see rear pads wear out sooner. Just look at the rear brake bias on many cars nowadays.


Can you name a car with this rearward brake bias?

Many modern cars with electric parking brakes, cruise control, traction control(rwd) and speed limiters will wear the rears quickly.

Drove a 2013 XJL that needed new rear pads at 18k

My XJL is also hard on rears, you can feel the rear of the car drag when using the speed limited or cruise control

The traction control aspect is specific to rwd and 4x4 or AWD vehicles though and will be different for each system

My old Mondeo and V50 got over 100k from rear pads.

I do think they wear quicker than drum brakes but it is a bit easier to change pads than shoes and they are cheap enough

Obviously vehicles with an EPB are different and slightly more involved requiring special tools usually

 

[bigjl]

On the subject of rear brake size

On a normal vehicle they really only stop the back from overtaking the front.

They put a transmission brake on some '99 LDV V8 Ambulances for London as an experiment to see if they could get the braking power they needed for the 3.9i V8 to replace the carb 3.5 V8 without having to reengineer the front suspension to accommodate the 15" wheels needed to fit the brakes.

The rear of these would drop when braking and also drag for a second when you lifted off, like you pulled on the handbrake, very wierd and never caught on thank god.

 

[supton]

I have an '04 VW and it was a common complaint that the rears wear out faster, due to rearward brake bias, used to prevent nose dive. I've read to actually brake harder if I wanted even brake wear--the fronts then start do more work. Do need the fancy tool to turn in the rear pistons, so that might be on way to save on some work.

Otherwise, at 2x the fronts, eh, I managed 168k on the rears on mine before a rivet popped through (should have made sure the pads were sliding, they might have made 200k). Pads are cheap, and I only worked on drums once or twice but didn't care for them. Pads that wear mean the brakes are working on that wheel, not a bad thing if you ask me.

 

[sasilverbullet]

I have two VW's, a 03 Jetta and 02 Bug, both diesels. The pads on both of them wear out in about a 3 to 1 ratio - 3 fronts to one rear set.

I think you might have something wrong with the brakes if the rears are wearing about the same as the fronts.

btw, the 02 jetta didn't have traction control, just ABS.

 

[Oldmoparguy1]

I replaced the rear brakes, (drums), on the 00 GC last fall. At 153k the shoes still were not down to the rivets and the drums were clean and smooth . Our new 13 GC has disks on the rear. Will be interesting to see how long they last.

Wayne

 

[ls1mike]

Originally Posted By: sasilverbullet
I have two VW's, a 03 Jetta and 02 Bug, both diesels. The pads on both of them wear out in about a 3 to 1 ratio - 3 fronts to one rear set.

I think you might have something wrong with the brakes if the rears are wearing about the same as the fronts.

btw, the 02 jetta didn't have traction control, just ABS.

Mine were like that on my 02 TDI. I tend to agree. My fronts wear much faster than the rears.

In addition to that my WS6 and W-Bodies always wear out the front pads first. On the Buick I did the fronts at about 63,000 miles. The rears didn't need it until 100,000.

The WS6 is at 62,000 with a bunch of 1/4 mile passes stopping anywhere from 108 to 118 mph. Second set of front brakes. Still on the original rears.

Just did the Grand Prix 55,000 miles fronts were gone. Rears probably have another 40,000 in them.

 

[Geauxtiger]

Would it be a semi-acurate statement to say that rearward bias (if it exists) is possible only because of traction/stability control smarts? I say that because rearward bias without any computer intervention means the potential for oversteer (such as the rears locking up first and causing the car to spin out). From my understanding, understeer is designed into most street vehicles due to better safety/control by the soccer moms? Designed oversteer is left to the hi performance cars/hi performance drivers?

 

[SHOZ]

My 2010 Hyundai Genesis Coupe has the usual fixed restriction for the rear brakes. But the 2013s us the ABS pump to control the pressure, sometimes upping the pressure to the rear depending on the traction control.

 

[supton]

Yes, with ABS you could bias front/rear and then controller would adjust as necessary.

What I don't know is if they have some sort of pressure valve setup where initially they apply rear brakes, and then above a certain pedal force they apply that extra force instead to the fronts. Let's say the first 100psi of braking pressure goes to the rears, then the next 100 plus goes to fronts (leaving rear at say 100psi, or some much slower rising level). Engage rear first, then rapidly apply fronts.

I'm not sure I could really feel it, but inspite of a rearward braking bias I don't think I've ever felt like the rears were being modulated under hard braking. I don't do hard braking often though.

 

[SHOZ]

Before the 2013s the Gen Coupe was just stupid and you got what you got. With the 2013s they removed the restrictor, which I think is part of the Master Cylinder, and added a separate brake pump to modulate the rear brakes. Quite a bit different.