Brake Pad Life

[Changin Gears]

What are you guys seeing in brake pad life? My drive to work (75% highway) 68 Dart (with 74 Dart discs) gets about 20k miles to a set of pads.  I just ordered the 1st set of pads for my wifes Jeep Liberty, it has 100k miles.  It's miles are 90% around town.

[Chryco Psycho]

Don`t have a clue ,never drive my car enough to find out , my brakes have lasted 30+ years so far 

[Bullitt-]

Maybe relevant, our Dodge minivan ate front brake pads, only about 20K per set mostly in town. Searches on the internet suggest that the rear drum brakes not staying adjusted shortened the life of the fronts.

[MEK-Dangerfield]

Are you using semi-metallic brake pads?

[Changin Gears]

Are you using semi-metallic brake pads?

Yes, Raybestos

[426HEMI]

You can never tell how much brakes will wear or how quick they will.  The pads can wear different according to the rotor surface or composition.  Have seen some wear sooner than others.  It is according to who is using the brakes and if the brakes are rode any or not. 

[Moparal]

Is it possible the calipers are stickin a bit?  20k doesnt sound real bad if you use it in traffic all the time .  Are the spindal nuts tight or just a little backed off to help loosen the grip when you let off the pedal? 

Pretty cool having a 68 dart for a daily driver work car.

[Stacked440]

My semi-mets usually last me until the friction material rusts off the backing plates, I do a lot of hard braking as well.

[autoxcuda]

Really depends on your driving habits and the driving enviroment you do.  Your wife may be far less aggressive as you are. And she may drive different less aggressive routes than you also.

I drove my 68 Dart convertible 80 miles round trip to work for about 2 years. But I drove through the most heavily trafficed freeway in the world, the 405 fwy between the 10 fwy and the 101 fwy in Los Angeles.  On fridays it would take me 1.5 hours to travel 40 miles home. 

When traffic moves we're going 75-80 mph in the left lane. Then you would have to really get on the binders if you have rubber-necking because of an accident on the other side of the fwy or someone pulled over on the shoulder. Sometimes I would take the canyons and Pacific Coast Highway home as an alternate.

I put 11.75 big rotors on the car just for added safety/defense. I think a little over two years would last me a set of pads.

[JH27N0B]

In the 90's my almost daily driver was a Thunderbird SC with a 5 speed and 4 wheel disc brakes and my secondary driver was a '95 Ram 1500 with 4wd and disc/drum brakes.
I got 135,000 miles out of a set of front brakes on the Tbird, and the pads still had a little bit of life left in them when I replaced them. With the truck, the front brakes on the Ram used to be shot about every 10,000 miles.  Same driver, drastically different brake pad life.
I drove the car 4 or 5 days a week.  Semi highway type driving mainly.  It was garage kept.  The truck I drove 1-3 days a week, same semi highway type driving plus some local errands, it was parked outside.
When the weather was bad, storming, snowy etc I would drive the truck.
Pretty dramatic difference, but my experience shows how much brake pad life can vary.