Hypermiling and brake wear (or lack thereof)

[roosterk0031]

Closing in on 150,000 miles with my XFE, when I installed the winter tires a few week ago the front pads look like 3/4 of thickness left. Doubt I'll ever take a drum off unless a wheel cylinder starts leaking. (first 26,000 on the XFE were by someone else).

Previous 03 Malibu and the XFE rotors rust fast if left outside wet, just over a weekend they'll grind the first few stops.

[cowmeat]

I checked out the pads when I put the moon discs on Ron Burgundy and they looked like they were around 65-70% (due to the previous owner), so I figure they'll last the life of the car, or at least the life of the car as long as I own it.

[Mustang Dave]

At 70,000 miles, my Mustang's front pads are ~10 mm and rear pads are ~ 8 mm.
Front pads on my F-250 are over 10 mm after 105 K miles (since replacement).

[Ecky]

Looking at the records, as far as I can tell, the previous owner of my car had his original brake pads in the front replaced at about 150,000 miles. The original rotors are still on the car.

[Joggernot]

Originally Posted by Ecky

Looking at the records, as far as I can tell, the previous owner of my car had his original brake pads in the front replaced at about 150,000 miles. The original rotors are still on the car.

The original rotors are on my car at 270k miles. I've only replaced pads in that time. However, I had a fast stop the other day and noticed that the rotors are wobbly. Guess it's time to replace them.

[pete c]

Interesting topic. Never really gave it much thought. I suspect the folks that have rotors that rot away live in flat places. I can see how someone in the flat parts of the midwest where they also have harsh winters would have this problem. No real worries here in hilly New England. Even the best hypermiler has to do a good bit of braking here.

I do wonder if for hybrids it might make sense to look at going back to the stone age with 4 wheel drum brakes which due to their design are less likely to rust. There is no need for the added cooling abilities if regen is doing the majority of the work.

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by pete c

Interesting topic. Never really gave it much thought. I suspect the folks that have rotors that rot away live in flat places. I can see how someone in the flat parts of the midwest where they also have harsh winters would have this problem. No real worries here in hilly New England. Even the best hypermiler has to do a good bit of braking here.

I do wonder if for hybrids it might make sense to look at going back to the stone age with 4 wheel drum brakes which due to their design are less likely to rust. There is no need for the added cooling abilities if regen is doing the majority of the work.

This particular hybrid has aluminum drums in the rear, and aluminum calipers in the front. I believe the only steel bits are the rotors in the front and the brake lines. This is what they look like at age 15:

[Iexpedite]

My Pontiac G6 had no brake pad issues. However, the coast to my driveway resulted in some corners being taken a little faster than normal. It caused two of my wheel hub assembly bearings to fail prematurely. Pontiac was kind enough to fix one for free. The other was too dangerous to risk driving to the dealership and had to be fixed locally...it cost me $300.

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by Iexpedite

My Pontiac G6 had no brake pad issues. However, the coast to my driveway resulted in some corners being taken a little faster than normal. It caused two of my wheel hub assembly bearings to fail prematurely. Pontiac was kind enough to fix one for free. The other was too dangerous to risk driving to the dealership and had to be fixed locally...it cost me $300.

Doubt very much hypermiling had anything to do with it.

[Iexpedite]

Originally Posted by oldtamiyaphile

Doubt very much hypermiling had anything to do with it.

You don't see a correlation between high speed cornering and increased wheel bearing wear?