Brake Pad wear

[Lockking]

Morning all, how long should a set of front pads last under normal driving. All discs & pads replaced 7k ago now brake wear warning coming up on dash. Wife drives it most of the time and is not hard on the brakes. I drive if we go away which does involve motorway but no hard braking. Got the pads and discs from Euro Car Parts.Is this normal or just bad pads? Cheers Lockking

 

[carnut]

I have a SL350 on which the pads and discs last about 30K miles. As wear is based on weight of the car and how hard you drive Im amazed at pads that only last 7k.

 

[prc]

Depends on what type of driving you do as well.
My wife drives mostly city/town and gets about 40kkm on pads. I do mostly highway and get 3x the mileage out of the pads.

 

[moosehead]

7K seems a bit short are you sure it's not a faulty brake wear sensor? I get 40K from the fronts (80K rears) on my W203 but that's mostly motorway work. The wife's SLK does around 25Kish fronts with her short trips / town driving.

 

[BlackC55]

What make were the pads? I would take a wheel off and have a look at them. It may just be a faulty sensor.

I have had customers that have worn them out at 8k. She was a terrible driver (not saying your Mrs is) and she was on the brakes all the time!

 

[markjay]

I get around 20k in mixed (but mostly town) driving...

 

[Lockking]

Thanks guys for coming back to me. Not had a chance to look but your probably right about the brake senser. I'll whip the wheels off and take a look. Answering BlackC55 question. Textar pads all round with ATE "power discs" (got groves in them) All these were fitted in Oct 08. Since then the cars done 7k. cheers Lockking

 

[moosehead]

That's the best thing to do as you can never rely on the sensors. I've just had pads and discs done all round and was surprised that there is only one sensor fitted to one of the fronts on my W203 Sport Pack. The rear pads were really down as well.

It will be interesting to see if the 'power discs' with grooves have contributed in anyway to the wear. I have the cross drilled brakes on the front of mine and as I said before the front pads go 40K miles with mostly motorway driving.

 

[Lockking]

I was wondering if the groves might have anything to do with it. I'll try and have a look today at the senser which is probably all it is. I've seen them in the past chaffed and broken which causes the problem.

 

[kth286]

any chance they are sticking on when pedal released ?

 

[Cen]

My original pads lasted 30,000 and still had a little wear left in them however, aftermarket even those of genuine MB parts do not appear to last for that amount of mileage.

It would appear the material used in aftermarket MB genuine parts is not of the same quality.

You should however be looking at an average of 12 to 20,000 miles dependant on driving methods

 

[Lockking]

Don't think so. Doesn't feel like like it's holding back.