misskatiemo

Hello all

I got my oil changed today and (as suspected) I'll be needing new brakes within the next 5-6k miles (if not sooner).

My fronts are worse than my rears (again, as expected) and it seems I'll probably need new rotors as well as brake pads.

I just bought the car 6k miles ago (2nd oil change on the car, bought it at 74k now it's at 80k) and i'm thinking at 11-12k miles on rotors + pads is very low for "average" wear and tear.

I do about 90/10% city driving now, however that changed from about 60/40% (city/highway) a few weeks ago. I've driven on the Dragon once (literally, one run, didn't want to chance it on a new car after it rained) and other than that driven quite normally and not very hard at all as most of my driving is done in commuting/morning traffic conditions.

I'm not one to slam on my brakes, use engine braking whenver possible and in general, baby the car quite a bit and don't treat it like I'm on an auto-x course every time I get behind the wheel....

my question (after my lengthy explaination) is how long would/should our rotors/pads last under the conditions described above, and would I have a very valid reason to pay CarMax a visit and say that they should have replaced my pads and rotors before they sold me the car?

I know for a FACT they didn't, and it's in their 125pt inspection process so I know they must have checked them, my question is how much wear would they have seen, imho it was probably >50% wear, which to me is a very hady business practice and I'd be prepared to raise quite a stink.

Saying that, if our cars somehow only get 15k out of the brakes and rotors (doubtful but hey, I'm trying to be nice) then it's about time and I'll be replacing them before my next Dragon trip.

Thanks for the advice, sorry for the length of the post just didn't want to miss anything or cause confusion!

clawhammer

My car is a MY01 and has 24k miles on it. I'm still on the original brakes and I have no idea how worn they are because I've never checked, but they don't make any noise (like metal-on-metal). I have always beat on the brakes with most of my driving being in the country. I also autocrossed the car 8-10 times last year.

Having said all of that, brakes should definitely last more than 11-12k miles unless the car is tracked. You can always try going back to Carmax, but they may try to put some cheap autozone brake pads and rotors on your car. If you can, try changing your brakes yourself. It's not hard at all, and you should be able to do it on a Sunday afternoon. There is a DIY somewhere on the forum.

05berlinas2k

bought my 05 with a little less than a 100mi and and just changed them at 32k with about 3/16 of pad left before the metal clips!

i changed them pretty early because i thought they were worse... but its better to take care of them before i warp the rotors


i say you should be able to get 40-45k mi out of your brakes

misskatiemo

that's what I thought.

I got screwed (I could say more but I'll leave it at that).

I'm investigating replacing the pads and rotors on my own, luckily enough my boyfriend gets a discount on parts so I'm waiting to see the totals for 4 pads and either 2 rotors or all 4, plus also investigating how much it would cost to get them resurfaced instead of replaced (I have a sneaky feeling it won't be a huge difference).

IMHO the labor is what kills. I've got a good 3k miles left AT LEAST on the brakes and rotors, and I was planning on replacing the pads before my next Dragon trip anyway... sort of just a "need to" instead of "want to" right now I suppose.

Grr @ stupid people working on cars. Why can't they be intelligent and not shady?

Note: I'm calling CarMax anyway to see what they say, who knows, they might say "yeah our screw up - we'll fix it" - who knows. Probably not but worth a call.

Thanks for the info, any more advice is appreciated!

I've had a look at the brake pad DIY, but don't see a rotor DIY... looking again?

clawhammer

Like I said, I've never changed brakes on my S2000, but I have done so on a few other cars.

Once the caliper is off, the rotor comes off very easily. There will still be a braket which was holding the caliper, but that should only be held on with about 2 bolts. Once that braket is off, the rotor should slide off the hub. You might need to hit it with a hammer. Or, if it's really bad, like on one car that still had the original ones at 150k miles, we took a hacksaw, and cut a slit in the rotor all the way to the hub, just to releive some of the pressure from the rotor. Don't worry, most of them will come off easily.

Slows2k

Unless you have a vibration under braking resurfacing the rotors is not required.

How many mm is left on the pad material?

New pads start at 9-10mm replacement level is 1.6mm. I've seen S2k's over 100K on original pads at 7mm. It all depends who is driving how long they last.

OEM pads are the quietest, and most rotor friendly pad available. Aftermarket (especially lifetime warranty) pads will be louder and wear the rotors faster than OEM pads.

Without knowing how many mm is remaining on the pads, you may be jumping the gun at replacing them..

Billman250

I think I've done brakes on less than 10 s2ks....out of 350.

The s2k brake life is the best I've seen on any car.

I find it had to believe you need brakes. If the brake pedal is smooth and doesn't pulse, and doesn't shake the steering wheel, your rotors are fine. As a mater of fact, I have never to date cut or replaced a set of s2k rotors because it needed them.

If you roll the car in the correct position, you can easily see the front and rear pads, especially with stock wheels. Take a pic and post it If you're not sure what to look for, I'll get you a pic.

chuhsi

I agree with the others. 11k is really fast for oem pads, especially since you engine brake when you can.

I'm at 15k total miles and everything still looks great.

Brake pads are also easy to change by yourself.