Common for front brake pads to go well over 100K miles? I think my dealer lied to me

[Thomas Reminga]

So I just hit 100K miles, and the dealer did a bunch of work under my ESP warranty right before it expired.

They told me though that my front brakes were also in need of replacement right away, they thought maybe 3-4mm left on the pad. I took them at their word but I am pretty mechanical inclined so I ordered the parts from Autohauz- rotors, pads and new fluid. I previously did my rears about 40K miles ago myself and those were quite low- I know this is a reported issue by others, so I just handled it.

Go to do the job today and pull off my driver side front wheel and I am looking at maybe half the pad still there! Check the back and it is also about half, which makes sense based on a more recent replacement. I was surprised to say the least, for two reasons. 1.) There is MORE then enough pad material for them to still be completely effective and never felt this dealer was trying to "screw" me. 2.) Based on looking at the new pads half remained on the old after 100K miles which seems to a long time i felt.

Is that normal for many to have that small amount of wear after 6 years and 100K miles on a 2017 Explorer Sport? I don't drive it lightly, and lets be honest it can be a bit of a boat- lot of mass to stop. I am not planning to replace the brakes as "suggested" but I am also super surprised they wear as slowly as they do. Just wondering others opinions? I threw a photo up showing the current pad and the new one- note the new one is much closer to the camera so there is a bit of an optical illusion, it is about half remaining.

 

[ProjectSHO89]

FWIW...

My '15 now has about 136K on it and still has the original fronts installed on it. I purchased a set of front and rear Wagner QC pads four years ago from Rockauto as I'd heard the rears wore rather rapidly. I went ahead and replaced the rears as they were getting thin, the fronts are still sitting on the shelf in my garage.

I did a thorough inspection of the brakes late last month in preparation for a long trip to Texas earlier this month. Both the front and the rears had about the same amount of pads remaining, probably 30% or so. I plan on replacing front and rears anyway in the spring as we're planning on taking the Expy up to Jackson Hole and Yellowstone in the late spring.

YMMV...

 

[javaleo]

I am lucky to get 40,000 miles on my front pads. your pic only shows the inner pad, what about the outer one.

 

[ExPlat]

My 2016 ExPlat had 6k miles on it when I had the Dealer put HD pads and surface the rotors on the front, it was vibrating and shaking on a hard stop. They told me it had 'standard' pads from the factory and recommended the HD pads. The rear pads are still the originals.

The car now has 50k miles on it, last month my new Dealer did some maintenance and checked the brakes, the fronts were at 8mm, the rears at 7mm. The Dealer recommended I wait a while longer before replacing, they all looked fine. I did have a complete brake fluid exchange at that time last month, it actually hardened up the pedal feel, glad I did that. After all this ExPlat is over 8 years, built on 07/23/2015.

With that latest info I can say the HD front pads have 44k miles and the original rear standard brake pads have 50k miles.

 

[Odrapnew]

I just replaced the front brakes for the first time on my 14 Sport with just over 125k miles.

About 2 months back I checked the front brakes because they were squeaking sometimes. Turns out the inner pad was really stuck in the bracket, had to take a hammer to remove it. I cleaned/greased them up and they still had material on the pads, but getting low, so I replace them.

I replaced the rears at about 70k miles and they were getting down there again, so I just did all 4 corners.