mikec35

I had my car aligned Monday and asked them to check the brake pads, I was surprised to find out that I have over 50% left. I had already purchased new pads thinking I was going to get a brake pad warning any day now. Pretty good... actually the longest wear I've seen yet from factory brake pads. Mine is all highway miles so if you do a lot of city driving I wouldn't expect to get that kind of life out of your pads.

CJG

That's typical for highway driving. I have 65,000 miles on my W204 and the brakes are still 9mm/10mm.

mikec35

I had the car in for service on Monday and the dealer checked the pads and stated over 50% left. Hopefully they checked both sides of the pads

chassis

Driving style has almost everything to do with brake pad life. I got 120,000 miles on a set of pads and rotors on a 2011 VW Touareg. Mostly highway miles, but also avoidance of using brakes in general, accomplished by engine braking with speed and gap matching in traffic, and looking far ahead at traffic conditions. No need to ever "stand on the brake pedal" unless something unexpected darts in front of you, or you intentionally set out to use the brakes that way.

Light, infrequent braking means longer pad and rotor life. Plus lower fuel consumption. Using the brakes = burning up kinetic energy that was given to the vehicle by burning fuel.

chrisdean

Agree, you should control the speed of the vehicle with the accelerator and not the brakes.

irondad

*on the highway

mikec35

Just rolled 125,000 miles, still original pads

chassis

@mikec35 Great results! Do you use cruise control often, specifically the decelerate function by pushing the control stalk down? This uses the rear brakes. I don't like this on my GLE. Also when using cruise control on a descent, the rear brakes are used to control speed and prevent acceleration. I don't like that either because it consumes brake pads.

Audi Junkie

Should have maned-up and swapped pads when they were low. AutoZone sells Brembo pads for like $75

mikec35

I do use cruise control a lot but never use the decelerate function on the control. I have caught myself using the gas pedal to speed up while still in cruise mode and have noticed when you let off the gas pedal the car brakes quick, didn't realize the rear brakes are what slows the car down.

mikec35

They weren't low, they were more than 50% pad left

chassis

Exactly. I don't care for that feature of M-B speed control. I prefer the vehicle to coast down to set speed rather than the brakes being applied by the electronic system.

Audi Junkie

Oh, right....you don't want to throw out a half-baked oem pad, it's far too valuable.

You missed the point that new pads would have saved the rotors from needing replacement.

I assumed that you would realize that, my bad.

mikec35

My rotors didn't need to be replaced. My pads still have about 40% life and don't need to be replaced. I'll replace them before they get into the rotors, doesn't make sense to me to replace parts before it's time.

Audi Junkie

I might have been confused with another poster who spent a fortune on a premature brake job. You actually had your pads, and a plan together ahead of time. Sorry about my tone.

When I get a new car, I toss the oem tires and get new ones immediately. Recently, I have been swapping out for aftermarket pads in a year or two, at least up front. Usually VAG vehicles are TRW pads, I'm not sure about the origin of the MB pads but they seem pretty good.

I do a lot of brake jobs on my mini fleet. Only the Metris is new.

mikec35

No problem @Audi Junkie, I hated the factory Continentals I got with my car, the rears made a lot of noise after about 15,000 miles. As far as pads and rotors go, I think I'll stick with the MB stuff, seems to last pretty well, at least in my experience!