New Brake thickness?

The front pad recommendation is BS. They start out at ~6mm, so they're telling you to change them at just over half their life. Changing at 1mm is fine at both ends.

i do not know there you bought your pads but mine were a good 10 mm (3/8") thick. It is a good idea to change your pads at 3 mm 1/8" because it stop your disks from over heating and warping. use all the pad and you need a disk job, use a little less and not disk work required.

FINN

Come to think of it, I probably underestimated the thickness of the pads.

How so? The amount of heat the rotor sees is the same, regardless of the thickness of the brake pads. The caliper pistons may see slightly higher temps with thin pads, but not enough to make any difference.

That's only true if you let the pads wear to the point that the metal backing plate makes contact with the rotors. As long as there is friction material left, no harm can come to the rotors. 1mm is plenty of material.

One caveat that I forgot to mention is that brake pads rarely wear at the same rate, so you must check all four of them and replace them when the thinnest one reaches the minimum thickness. I suspect that this "old mechanic's tale" of changing at 3mm of pad material left is probably a hedge against uneven wear.

2/32" is the industry standard for minimum brake thickness. This converts to about 1.6mm. 3mm is significantly before replacement is necessary, but you should also consider that you may be below minimum prior to your next 3k service.

Pad thickness does not affect the amount of heat transferred to the rotors. Braking systems are very efficient, and, if I recall the figure correctly, convert about 99% of a vehicle's kinetic energy to heat. In other words, the amount of heat resulting from a stop is dependent solely upon your vehicle's mass, speed, and rotational inertia.

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