[hongthan]

I just went to dealer this morning for 15k mile service (2011 Outback 2.5i Limited). I saw the wear in the rear brake pads are more in my Outback. I am curious about all the other owners' experience about this. For FWD, the front break pads wear a lot fast than the rear.

Thanks,

 

[subiesailor]

at 15K you shouldn't see hardly any wear that means much of anything regarding how they will work out over time.

I'm at 42K and have a little more than 50% of the pad left on both fronts and rears. The type of brake use can change the difference between rears vs fronts wearing faster etc. Lots of very light bleeding off of speed brake use you might actually see the rear pads wearing more than the fronts. More standard braking use stop signs etc where heavier use of the brake is involved the front pads for sure will show faster rate of wear than the rears. I have found this to be the case on all my cars AWD or two wheel drive.

As for subaru they historically have used very good rotors and long lasting pads even with fairly heavy use I expect to see 65,000 miles on my stock pads.

The one odd thing I did notice was between about 35,000 miles and 40,000 miles the pads developed a nasty grind noise when the brakes were used under light stopping for a period of several days. However once the car was run at higher speeds and the brakes were used for heavier longer stops the grinding went away. I checked all the pads twice given the grinding sound was pretty terrible sounding. Now at just over 42,000 miles the grinding has abated and they are quiet and smooth like they were prior to the mid to late 30K range. Starting to think that the pads had a slight change in material hardness or make up and now that they have been worn down a little more that spot in the pads is gone and I'm back to the same type of pad material the pads had earlier on.

Either way for sure the pads are all 100% fine regarding life but something was a little goofy about the material on the pads for a few thousand miles.

I can easily see a dealer selling a car owner new brakes and rotors when they heard the grind sound I was getting. Heck without actually looking my self I would have thought something major was up with the brakes. As it turned out they were perfectly fine but the pads were for sure picking up either dust or had something different in the material causing the grind sound.

 

[Scooba Steve]

they are smaller pads, thus getting hotter. i imagine this could be an explanation.
i have noticed the same thing in my 99 (ancient) but have never really questioned it.

 

[foxrider68]

Stop giving it gas and hitting the brakes at the same time.

Seriously I have a grandma who drives like this with two feet. Sooo scary.

 

[subiesailor]

Stop giving it gas and hitting the brakes at the same time.

Seriously I have a grandma who drives like this with two feet. Sooo scary.

LOL Father inlaw is a two foot driver. Whats worse is that he according to family members was never a hot rod type let alone even just a hair over the limit type of driver. But he views the two foot driving to be the proper race car driving technique!

His Suburban eats brake pads like you wouldn't believe and his AT fluid gets changed way early because it starts looking pretty bad surprisingly fast. As a passenger you keep waiting for him to launch through the garage door - or end up going through the front doors at the Bank with his go foot giving the car gas while his brake foot keeps the car from launching.

Crazy thing is if you say something to him about it he can switch and drive normal like he's been doing it for his whole life? He wants a SLK Convertable I told him that they have a throttle cut off feature and he needs to make an effort to only drive with one foot. ;-) So far hes been driving with one foot for a few months now HA HA... Way better passenger experience thats for sure!

 

[Tom28]

I just went to dealer this morning for 15k mile service (2011 Outback 2.5i Limited). I saw the wear in the rear brake pads are more in my Outback. I am curious about all the other owners' experience about this. For FWD, the front break pads wear a lot fast than the rear.

Thanks,

Not always. My Jetta went through 4 sets of rear pads before the fronts were even ready to think about changing...

 

[subiesailor]

Not always. My Jetta went through 4 sets of rear pads before the fronts were even ready to think about changing...

My wifes Jetta oddly enough went through two sets of pads and rotors per the dealer. However since I started handling the brake health on it - the rear pads and fronts have not been dramatically different and to top it off oddly enough it has gone twice as far on the stock pads which the dealer claimed were toast along with the rotors at 20K.

I didn't know my wife well enough then but she has since told me she 100% knows she was ripped off by the dealer. AFter I have checked and shown her how the brakes work and what the pads look like.

My guess is that at the time she was only driving the car about once a month and it was parked in San Francisco about a block from the Ocean. Even in a garage your discs will get a surface layer of rust on them heck even my nice tools in the tool box would rust! LOL Guessing she heard a grind sound and the dealer simply saw her as an easy mark and sold her new brakes and possibly her own discs back to her. LOL

 

[Nickshu]

Newer cars with Electronic Brake Distribution will wear pads based on caliper usage compared to weight distribution. It's counterintuitive to what we all were used to on older cars where the front pads usually wore out first b/c thats where the weight is. At least that's how it's been explained to me.

I think it has very little to do with FWD vs AWD. My last two (newer) FWD cars both wore out the rear pads quicker than the front.

 

[subiesailor]

Newer cars with Electronic Brake Distribution will wear pads based on caliper usage compared to weight distribution. It's counterintuitive to what we all were used to on older cars where the front pads usually wore out first b/c thats where the weight is. At least that's how it's been explained to me.

I think it has very little to do with FWD vs AWD. My last two (newer) FWD cars both wore out the rear pads quicker than the front.

Yes and no

Front brakes regardless of the tech still provide 90% or more of the braking force for any vehicle simple physics.

The rear brakes on the more advanced cars with the fancy Braking systems and traction control systems etc - will see more wear than what most people are use to seeing on the old lower tech cars given the rear brakes on the new cars will be used by stability systems- traction systems and - the brake system is smarter about how much force it can put on the rear brakes etc all with the idea that the right brake force at the right time keeps the car stable and as balanced as possible.

If the rear pads are dramatically smaller than the fronts they could wear out faster than the front pads but generally speaking the front pads will not be very far behind having been providing 90% or more of the total braking force to start with.

 

[stratman]

Excessive rear pad wear might have something to do with the parking brake.

 

[tunces outback]

I'm at 71,000 mi. on my 2008 outback and still have the same pads. My Audi A4 is at 80,000+ and still on the same pads.

 

[EvlOutback]

Just had my 2010 in for service today. I'm at 55,800 miles and they said that I have 20% left on my brakes or approx. 10,000 more miles. I will be getting them done in the next 5k miles. On our Tribecca we got 60k for the fronts and just did the backs at 96k. Although should have done the backs at 94k.

 

[jp1203]

My fronts have always worn significantly faster then my backs on any car.

In regard to the two-foot thing, the only time I do it is if someone's right behind me on a steep hill, since my '04 will roll back a bit if the hill is steep enough. Probably more paranoia or leftover from driving a stick than anything else, since it doesn't even roll quickly enough to be an issue unless someone was 1 inch from my bumper.

 

[awd-gg]

My fronts have always worn significantly faster then my backs on any car.

In regard to the two-foot thing, the only time I do it is if someone's right behind me on a steep hill, since my '04 will roll back a bit if the hill is steep enough. Probably more paranoia or leftover from driving a stick than anything else, since it doesn't even roll quickly enough to be an issue unless someone was 1 inch from my bumper.

I bet you'll love the Hill holder feature in the gen4 OB!!!

 

[hongthan]

The wear is very minimal. The thing surprised me is that the technician marked more wear on the front pad than rear pad. I am not sure it can be related to parking brake because you can not move without releasing it. I just hope that is not something unusual. By the way, at least half of the miles are on highway and I am usually very gentle on the brake.

at 15K you shouldn't see hardly any wear that means much of anything regarding how they will work out over time.

I'm at 42K and have a little more than 50% of the pad left on both fronts and rears. The type of brake use can change the difference between rears vs fronts wearing faster etc. Lots of very light bleeding off of speed brake use you might actually see the rear pads wearing more than the fronts. More standard braking use stop signs etc where heavier use of the brake is involved the front pads for sure will show faster rate of wear than the rears. I have found this to be the case on all my cars AWD or two wheel drive.

As for subaru they historically have used very good rotors and long lasting pads even with fairly heavy use I expect to see 65,000 miles on my stock pads.

The one odd thing I did notice was between about 35,000 miles and 40,000 miles the pads developed a nasty grind noise when the brakes were used under light stopping for a period of several days. However once the car was run at higher speeds and the brakes were used for heavier longer stops the grinding went away. I checked all the pads twice given the grinding sound was pretty terrible sounding. Now at just over 42,000 miles the grinding has abated and they are quiet and smooth like they were prior to the mid to late 30K range. Starting to think that the pads had a slight change in material hardness or make up and now that they have been worn down a little more that spot in the pads is gone and I'm back to the same type of pad material the pads had earlier on.

Either way for sure the pads are all 100% fine regarding life but something was a little goofy about the material on the pads for a few thousand miles.

I can easily see a dealer selling a car owner new brakes and rotors when they heard the grind sound I was getting. Heck without actually looking my self I would have thought something major was up with the brakes. As it turned out they were perfectly fine but the pads were for sure picking up either dust or had something different in the material causing the grind sound.

 

[lloyd123]

Crazy thing is if you say something to him about it he can switch and drive normal like he's been doing it for his whole life? He wants a SLK Convertable I told him that they have a throttle cut off feature and he needs to make an effort to only drive with one foot. ;-) So far hes been driving with one foot for a few months now HA HA... Way better passenger experience thats for sure!

I read somewhere that the 2013 OB now has the throttle cut off if both the brake and gas pedals are depressed at the same.

 

[G-Omaha]

It is a listed feature for the 2013 OB.

 

[Rockin Ronnie]

Newer cars with Electronic Brake Distribution will wear pads based on caliper usage compared to weight distribution. It's counterintuitive to what we all were used to on older cars where the front pads usually wore out first b/c thats where the weight is. At least that's how it's been explained to me.

I think it has very little to do with FWD vs AWD. My last two (newer) FWD cars both wore out the rear pads quicker than the front.

This is exactly the information my dealer gave to me. Brake force distribution is the cause of accelerated wear on the rear pads. Not fixable since it is a safety feature.

2013 OB also has brake override feature. Stomp on both gas and brake and the brake will override the gas.

Ron

 

[immortal_suby]

Excessive rear pad wear might have something to do with the parking brake.

Seems unlikely. The outback parking brake is a shoe/drum setup inside the rear disk/drum and functions separately from the rear brake pads which clamp the disk. Subaru has been doing this setup for quite a few years.

 

[mcbrew]

Jetta/Golf/Beetles had known issues with rear pad wearing fast for some people. The system in those cars (A4 chassis in particular) would apply the rear brake slightly before the front in order to reduce "nose diving". People who used a lot of light braking would notice accelerated rear brake pad wear.

I use the brakes sparingly, and my commute does not involve a lot of stop and go driving. In my A4 Golf, I replaced the front pads at 124,000 miles and never replaced the rears (sold it at 150,000 miles).