Rear brakes wear faster than front

Gus_Mahn

Gus_Mahn

Joined
Nov 5, 2017
Messages
163
Location
Great Lakes
Has anybody noticed rear brakes wearing faster than front brakes on newer vehicles. It seems to be the case on both my ‘15 F150 and my wife’s ‘22 BMW X1. My brakes have been done more than once but her’s have never been done, and the rear dusts the wheels way more than the front. Pretty sure the F150 is 2 rears to 1 front. First time noticing this in the 20+ cars I’ve owned and maintained.
 
IIRC, this is going back a while, my wifes old 98 Beetle would wear the rears first. Out 2012 Chrysler T&C definitely wore the rears first.

My Ram is wearing pretty even and so is the Pacifica.
 
My 2004 VW Jetta would do this. It used electronic brake distribution and would bring in the rears first, to help prevent nose dive during light braking. Press harder and the fronts would do what you'd expect.

My Tundra had "electronic" limited slip so it would pull brake lines to clamp down on a spinning wheel. I didn't chew up any brake pads with this but I could see how some could.

I did have to toss a set of pads at our hybrid at stupid low miles but that was because the pads froze in the caliper brackets and thus ground themselves into nothing at a low mileage. Usually they last a good length of time for me.
 
Traction control and sway control use the rear brakes on the late model F150. Users with a heavy foot often report the rear brakes wearing out quickly...

On the flip side, I got over 100,000 miles out of the rear brakes on my 16' F150 - closer to 90,000 on the fronts.
 
On Fords it is common to see rear brakes wearing faster. I think this is true even more so in northern states where salt is used more frequently. The caliper brackets corrode quickly and the pads get stuck and drag enough to wear them down…I’ve personally seen it a number of times and do extra maintenance to get rid of the corrosion and relube those areas…not sure why this doesn’t seem to happen on the fronts though…
 
FordSVTGuy said:
not sure why this doesn’t seem to happen on the fronts though…
Click to expand...
My Tundra was devilish on doing this for the fronts. Otherwise, yes I agree, seems the fronts don’t quite suffer as badly as the rears, when it comes to seizing like this.
 
A few earlier threads on or mention the topic, perhaps they may help:

Rear brakes wearing faster than fronts?

Has anyone ever had their rear brake pads wear out faster than the front ones? For the (CPO) Volvo in my signature line, my wife took it to the dealership for its free 10K service, which is basically an oil change and a bunch of inspections, and they measured the rear pads at 5mm and front ones...
bobistheoilguy.com

Does VSC wear out your rear brake pads?

My 2016 Mazda 6 is making grinding noises from the rear brakes so I’m thinking I need new pads. It only has 62k miles and that seems early compared to all the other vehicles I’ve owned. Plus, I’ve never had rears wear our before fronts. Do electronic parking breaks or traction control systems...
bobistheoilguy.com

front and rear brake pad wear

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...
bobistheoilguy.com

Rear Brake Pads Wore Out After 28,000 miles

I installed AutoZone's Duralast Gold pads onto my '96 SL2 at around 88,000 miles. Both the front and the rear pads were replaced. I also resurfaced the rotors when the pads were installed. Now, 28,000 miles later, the rear pads are completely shot. The pads had 2-3mm left on the left rear and...
bobistheoilguy.com

My brake pad experience...

Basically I have tried a lot of different brake pads. The more aggressive, the more bite a pad has the less life and the more stress it puts on the rotors. The very best sport pads are semi-metallic variety with a lot of bite and stopping power. However, I never get those pads to truly last and...
bobistheoilguy.com
 
Vehicles with electronic stability systems that make use of individual wheel brake activation, especially when driven fast in curves much of the time, will wear out especially rear brakes at an increased rate because the rear brakes are used more frequently compared to the rear brakes on vehicles that do not have such a feature. The increased rear brake wear is the price one pays for improved vehicle stability. I had increased rear brake wear on my Bimmer and I see it on the Mini.
 
Last edited:
My 15 F150 is traditional in that the fronts wear first and by a decent amount for IME. My Outback is by far more rear pad wear-prone. My kids 12 RAV4 FWD is front first as well.
 
Gus_Mahn said:
Has anybody noticed rear brakes wearing faster than front brakes on newer vehicles. It seems to be the case on both my ‘15 F150 and my wife’s ‘22 BMW X1. My brakes have been done more than once but her’s have never been done, and the rear dusts the wheels way more than the front. Pretty sure the F150 is 2 rears to 1 front. First time noticing this in the 20+ cars I’ve owned and maintained.
Click to expand...

The rear brakes are over dimensioned on newer cars, well the discs and pistons are but not the pads. This means the rear brakes pull more than their share of the weight. Once the rears are clsoe to breaking traction, the brake force is capped or even reduced and the fronts do proprtionally more.

If you're a light braker, this means the rears wear faster. But the fronts are spared more.
 
kschachn said:
A few earlier threads on or mention the topic, perhaps they may help:

Rear brakes wearing faster than fronts?

Has anyone ever had their rear brake pads wear out faster than the front ones? For the (CPO) Volvo in my signature line, my wife took it to the dealership for its free 10K service, which is basically an oil change and a bunch of inspections, and they measured the rear pads at 5mm and front ones...
bobistheoilguy.com

Does VSC wear out your rear brake pads?

My 2016 Mazda 6 is making grinding noises from the rear brakes so I’m thinking I need new pads. It only has 62k miles and that seems early compared to all the other vehicles I’ve owned. Plus, I’ve never had rears wear our before fronts. Do electronic parking breaks or traction control systems...
bobistheoilguy.com

front and rear brake pad wear

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...
bobistheoilguy.com

Rear Brake Pads Wore Out After 28,000 miles

I installed AutoZone's Duralast Gold pads onto my '96 SL2 at around 88,000 miles. Both the front and the rear pads were replaced. I also resurfaced the rotors when the pads were installed. Now, 28,000 miles later, the rear pads are completely shot. The pads had 2-3mm left on the left rear and...
bobistheoilguy.com

My brake pad experience...

Basically I have tried a lot of different brake pads. The more aggressive, the more bite a pad has the less life and the more stress it puts on the rotors. The very best sport pads are semi-metallic variety with a lot of bite and stopping power. However, I never get those pads to truly last and...
bobistheoilguy.com
Click to expand...
Nice, I actually searched too before posting because this comes up a lot. But I only found a couple of those threads and they were more tangential like the VSC one. Good work!!
 
Jetronic said:
The rear brakes are over dimensioned on newer cars, well the discs and pistons are but not the pads. This means the rear brakes pull more than their share of the weight. Once the rears are clsoe to breaking traction, the brake force is capped or even reduced and the fronts do proprtionally more.

If you're a light braker, this means the rears wear faster. But the fronts are spared more.
Click to expand...
That's a very good point. On newer cars, the rear brakes certainly do more work compared to how it used to be.
 
Both of our Jeeps wear the rear brakes faster than the front. Smaller pads I'm sure have a lot to do with it even with the bias supposedly being controlled electronically.
 
demarpaint said:
Both of our Jeeps wear the rear brakes faster than the front. Smaller pads I'm sure have a lot to do with it even with the bias supposedly being controlled electronically.
Click to expand...

It's not so much controlled as we like to think. Brake force is reduced when mandatory (and when driving forward, that means the rear brake force gets reduced) but no more than that
 
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