How long do front-brake discs and pads last, on average?

Bricriu

I had new front-brake discs and pads fitted on a Renault Kangoo Van in December 2014. Those disks and pads were failed in the CVRT (DOE) test in December 2016 (after two years) after very low mileage (under 20,000 km).

The van is NOT used for commercial purposes (i.e. to carry heavy loads).

I found this unusual, and would welcome comments on how long, on average, people find their front-brake discs and pads to last.

Thanks.

B-D-P--

Did they fail because they are worn or because the disks were riddled with rust?
Just asking because the low milage.

biko

Brand?

My pads last 2 years or so if that helps. Tbh, it's "long string" question.

edburg

Depends on driver style really, I think its roughly 4+ years on both my cars.

But annual mileage is barely 10k on 1 and other is around 5k max these days.

Bricriu

Poster here: To answer question: They failed because of burring and some rust.

Stravos Murphy

The cvrt are gone too strict on brake discs in my opinion, finding new ways every day to get a retest to boost their own revenue.

corsav6

Stravos Murphy wrote: »

The cvrt are gone too strict on brake discs in my opinion, finding new ways every day to get a retest to boost their own revenue.

Completely agree. My van failed on corrosion on front disc. When I removed it to fit the new discs I was well p#*t to discover some minor surface rust. I rubbed it down quickly and ran it through again with the old discs on and it passed.

Eric Cartman

Stravos Murphy wrote: »

The cvrt are gone too strict on brake discs in my opinion, finding new ways every day to get a retest to boost their own revenue.

+1 , my range rover failed on needing front discs despite no major scoring, only a tiny lip on them , pads were still 60% there and brake effort was well above the minimum.
the car was in a main dealer before the CVRT and even their inspection didn't suggest changing them.

jimmycrackcorm

I've never had my pads changed for 9 years and 60k miles. Passing every NCT ok. I put it down to heavy use of engine braking.

coylemj

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I've never had my pads changed for 9 years and 60k miles. Passing every NCT ok. I put it down to heavy use of engine braking.

+1 10 years and 88k kms, still on the original factory-fitted pads. No heavy braking of any kind, keep your distance from the guy in front and anticipate what's happening up ahead.

And when you're leaving it in for a service, tell them you intend getting new pads when the sensor light comes on and no earlier. Three years ago they told me there was only 8,000 kms left on them.

Just changed front discs and pads on the car last month. According to service history disc were original so had approx 130k on them. Pads were changed last changed at 65k so 65k on the pads, still have 30% left too but best to change with the discs which were corroded. Rear pads are still the ones with 65k and rear discs are still original. Car is 11 yeas old.

Toyotafanboi

It really is dependent on individual cases. 20k/ 2 years of city driving would have a completely different effect as opposed to 20k/ 2 years on the motorway, loaded van or not.

barneygumble99

DOE have always been overly strict on brake components. Pads are a particular bone of contention as are discs , because its opinion diagnosis. Though I haven't seen a car fail on pads in a long time, the last one I did, a VW Caddy , failed on worn pads and it was just a visual retest, no brake rollers, no fee. That was a couple of years ago now though so may have changed.

Stravos Murphy

The cvr testers are pissed off and bored in their job imo and get a kick out of failing vehicles. Same way they rev the balls of yokes, 12 times a tester revved the Shi'ite out of a cruiser last week. The allowance is 5 times.

The Backwards Man

Have 100,000 miles on front pads on a Caddy, I've taken them off a few times to try and figure out what's wrong, but all seems OK

Stravos Murphy

Take off discs why?

barneygumble99

Stravos Murphy wrote: »

The cvr testers are pissed off and bored in their job imo and get a kick out of failing vehicles. Same way they rev the balls of yokes, 12 times a tester revved the Shi'ite out of a cruiser last week. The allowance is 5 times.

Afaik they are entitled to fail a vehicle if the readings are above the limit after 5 revs. If they revved it 12 times, it's likely that it failed twice but because the readings were getting lower each time, they tried it a third time and it passed after the 12th rev so in fact they may have did the owner a favour.

Voodoomelon

I've done 45,000km on my 740s discs and pads, pads are still easily 50%+. That's with virtually no motorway or national road driving. As said above, all depends on the driver. My mate gets a set of pads on his Focus every 18 months and he does less mileage than I do, he's very hard on the brakes.

Stravos Murphy

Red lining a vehicle to that extent while stationary is not on. Let them carry it back the road and get cool air through the system and red line it then.

9935452

Voodoomelon wrote: »

I've done 45,000km on my 740s discs and pads, pads are still easily 50%+. That's with virtually no motorway or national road driving. As said above, all depends on the driver. My mate gets a set of pads on his Focus every 18 months and he does less mileage than I do, he's very hard on the brakes.

True to a point but you could be running genuine or oem quality ones are he might be running cheap ****e which wont last nearly as long

mullingar

Cheap discs are cheap for a reason.

Most folks dont realise that there is only 1mm of wear allowed on each side of a disc before its finished. The easiest way to visually check is to see if there is a lip on the disc >1mm, if the CRVT see a >1mm lip, its a fail.

NCT do not check for this lip, the only check for the brake performance

greasepalm

i too would be safety aware on looking at discs and pads,discs with black marks could be high spots on discs,pads not free in caliper carrier usually leaving a rusty non used surface of non braking,sometimes wear can be seen through wheel where hard pads have worn a groove leaving an inner and outer wear lip and if too much new pads and discs needed.

just for the record i had a p307 fail nct on front pads and just missed scoring the discs.

barneygumble99

http://c4owners.org/images/c4/service/wear.jpg

Most discs have wear indicators like on the disc in the image. When they wear so much that this lip is about to break off, they're due replacing.

mullingar

That's not a wear indicator, it's a piece cut off to balance them. The only way to know if it's past it's best is to measure them with a calipers. Most discs have a minimum value stamped on them, but is easily found on the net