[MagoonR]

Today I am quite surprised to learn that my '00 S40 needs new rear discs at the ripe old age of 16,000 miles. According to the dealer, the pad material is soft to stay quiet at the expense of longevity. She has seen pads wearing out at 10-12,000 and is not surprised at my 16,000. My front pads are still fine so I am guessing that the rears are quite a bit thinner than the fronts when new. Has anyone else had similar situation?

 

[S.R.]

Does your car need new rear discs or pads? 16,000 miles for new rear pads seems a little early, but it is true that Volvo pads are very soft and tend to have to be replaced more often. This is why they give out more brake dust and also give better stopping performance as well.

-Drew

 

[ernest]

quote:

Originally posted by RedS40ASR:
Today I am quite surprised to learn that my '00 S40 needs new rear discs at the ripe old age of 16,000 miles. According to the dealer, the pad material is soft to stay quiet at the expense of longevity. She has seen pads wearing out at 10-12,000 and is not surprised at my 16,000. My front pads are still fine so I am guessing that the rears are quite a bit thinner than the fronts when new. Has anyone else had similar situation?

needing new pads at 16K doesn't seem all that unusual from the experiences we've seen shared here; the (stock) pad material is notoriously soft. early rear pad wear seems to be especially common if the car's mostly gently driven in traffic so the braking system is using more rear brakes. (stopping slightly harder will cause the braking forces to be biased more to the front... but i don't want to have to adjust my driving style to suit the car; i think it should be the other way around!)

needing new discs (rotors) at 16K would be unacceptable. the only possibly (arguably) acceptable exception might be that the rotors may have been damaged by the pads after the pads wore out,... but getting me to accept that would be a stretch.

frankly, i can understand that they used a soft material for the pads in the sake of getting better braking. (i might not feel this way while i'm in the middle of cleaning the dust of the wheels every week,...) but, would it have been too difficult to design them so that they were a little thicker and didn't wear out so dang quickly?

cheers!
e

 

[MagoonR]

Sorry for the confusion. The rear pads wore out at 16,000 miles; not the rotors. Thanks for the responses.

 

[kmz_08]

Yes the same thing happened to me. Except my pads wore out at 20,000 miles. The dealer said that it was because the rear rotor is smaller than the front one and does not dissapte heat as well.