Brake pads

Yea that's it. Engines have got more efficient, and more powerful as now you can get a modern car, such as the Mondeo which weighs much more than it's old equivalent, such as a Sierra - yet it returns the same economy (and is probably capable of better on a run) and has more power.

You're agreeing with him? Seriously? Look at his other replies dude hehe! The guy's a fruit cake...

They are not really equivalents though, both should be mass production, it is like comparing am F1 car to a road car.

the midget might be compared to an MR2, perhaps?

The atom might be compared to a real specialist car such as a Frazer nash? or a Morgan?

PCPaul gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Daihatsu C-Open? 830kg...

Where did he say most of his mileage is motorways? He just says he does a fair few motorway miles - which isn't necessarily the same thing.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Tanner-'op" saying something like:

I recently changed out the worn factory-fitted pads on my Tranny at 56K. That's fairly normal for me in general driving - and on back roads too, with plenty of speed variation.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Chris Whelan saying something like:

Bollocks, was it.

Is the correct answer.

And you need to get some logic. And turn down the telepathy.

If we were both driving the same car, on the same roads, at the same times, and you got twice the mileage out of a set of pads, and didn't do so by substituting clutch for brakes, then you might well have a point.

Hell, then again, you might not. If I make my journey safely, and don't endanger or inconvenience others, who cares?

Driving style is one factor. Roads are another. The car itself and the nmakeup of the brake components another. You simply /cannot/ say that soemone cannot drive because they get even as little as 10K out of a set of pads. Someone bimbling along everywhere at 42mph in their Rover 100 on quiet uncongested roads (or maybe even in traffic if speeds never get very high) may get many thousands of miles. Soemone using soft pads pressing on in the twisties much less. I'd imagine cross-drilled disks might wear the pads quicker too, but I don't know.

For the record, my mileage on motorways is in the heavily congested West Midlands: One of the bits that has heavy traffic but isn't usually completely blocked. If you didn't make use of the brakes there, you would hit someone very quickly indeed (when the 10th car that morning pulls out into lane 3 at 60), and as DanB pointed out, it's 'a fair few miles', not 'most'.

That's pretty rare anywhere near here, unless it's 3 in the morning.

============================================ Is this the 5 minute argument or the full half hour?

Doki was thinking very hard :

That very much depends upon driving style and to some extent the vehicle. My weekday car perhaps 30k, but that by necessity gets hammered at times.

My weekend car for leisure use only - which is driven with an extreme laid back style (but not slow) I would expect to last 50 to 70K. On this I would only need to fit new pads if it happened to require them on initial purchase.

Even the still original pads on my bike will easily beat 25 to 30k, by the looks of them at its current 21K.

10k - Try anticipating more, rather than reacting too late with your brakes. It saves both fuel, wear and is not necessarily any slower.

Chris Whelan wrote on 01/08/2008 :

Pads are so hard now, combined with the lack of asbestos, that they wear the disks out.

Jerry presented the following explanation :

Generally they are very much heavier due to all the gadgets, wider tyres and all the extra comfort padding. Which is why fuel consumption has remained similar, despite engines and fuelling systems improving dramatically over the years.

That has certainly been my experience.

I owned two cars with disc brakes, but no servo. (The first was a Hillman Super Minx, the second an Avenger.) In order to get reasonable pedal pressures, the pad material was very soft.

One of them had a pad life of as little as 6,000 miles, the other was around

10,000.

My Focus does 30,000 miles on a set of front pads, and 60,000 on a set of front discs.

YMMV :-)

It doesn't make my experiences bollocks however, only different to yours.

Chris

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Chris Whelan saying something like:

Very well then, not bollocks, just varied. From my earliest days I've driven on the throttle, but I was driving Hunters, Avengers and various Fords / Leylands back then and commonly getting over 30K per set of pads, often 50K. I wasn't alone in that, and replacing worn-out discs was only likely if a)the driver was heavy-footed b)a caliper piston had stuck c)careless driver ignored grinding of metal to metal. The discs weren't service items, as they now almost seem to be. Tyres are another thing - 60K wasn't unheard of back then for Michelin-X tyres (and that was on company cars and vans with proper record keeping)- what tyres now are in that league? There must be something that can give the same sort of mileage with decent grip.

Of course, the greater weight and power of modern cars has a bearing on all this - but the general principle applies, if you aren't heavy on the brakes they will last longer - e.g., my Transit.

I wasn't serious.. generally an equivalent car now will definitely be much heavier than then.

Whether that will remain so for more than another few years, I'd doubt...

Well, I doubt it will run.

Incidentally, my 40k figure was on past experience.

I took th Fabia in today for a 40k service: the pads are "about half worn", and I've had the car since 12k miles.

The just-released Seat Ibiza is allegedly 25kg lighter than it's predecesor, like for like. Well about time: cars have steadily got heavier for soem years.