When to replace brakes

TobyU said:

Tons of our left on there and could have gone much longer and gotten money's worth out of them.

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I am in middle of upgrading front to a Wilwood kit and got new rotors for rear and went ahead and changed these out to a power stop pad. They weren't as bad as I thought they were when I looked with wheel on.

TheDoug said:

I am in middle of upgrading front to a Wilwood kit and got new rotors for rear and went ahead and changed these out to a power stop pad. They weren't as bad as I thought they were when I looked with wheel on.

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Cool. Yes, when you're replacing rotors or whatever I do have a hard time bringing myself to use old pads even on a cheap regular style rotor so I will usually take the old ones off and just save them for a potential backup if they have lots of pad left on them.
I have ended up with a nice little assortment of brake pads over the past few years though. I learned to either leave them in the boxes or two somehow mark them if I put them all in a tote or something so I can check and see if I have one.
Occasionally on an old vehicle a caliper will stick or something and wear one of the pads extremely or even grind into the rotor and these are perfect just to throw on one side for a few days or weeks until you decide what you're going to do or round Up your parts.
One of the real aggravations today and not just recently but it's been this way for 3 or 4 years of the parts stores cranking up the prices.

I used to have no problem just going in and buying and getting good deals at one of the three or four local stores and I even have commercial accounts at most of them because I really don't want to order car parts online but when they make the prices almost double what I can get the parts for online and sometimes even worse, they are simply pricing themselves out of existence for me.
I've had to buy a couple of wiper motors over the past 2 years and these are all on very old vehicles so they're pretty simple remix because they're very common still.
The local parts store wanted over $70.
That's absurd! A wiper motor should be between 30 and 40 bucks. So I got online and I can get remand ones, new ones whatever for about $34.
I still have a slight problem because a lot of parts like this have a lifetime warranty and even if the warranty online is the same or still good, that's a hassle. Even if it's rockauto, it's still a hassle. I want to be able to pop the part off if and when it does fail walk into the local store in 5 minutes and be back home with a new one.
But I'm not willing to pay double for this because even though I keep most of my cars a very long time and I do have parts that will need to be replaced again, I'm not paying double.
I've held out so far on brake pads but the last said I bought was like $41 and that is absurd.
I should be able to walk into a local parts store and buy there cheap house brand but the first ones that have a lifetime warranty for no more than 20 to 25 bucks tops! They used to be $16.99 retail and $12.99 with the commercial account.
So see they've doubled and sometimes tripled their prices while online is still giving us some fair deals.

Sometimes you get what you pay for. Maybe I'm pessimistic but I would be worried about paying less than $20 for brake pads. Even $41 seems cheap to me. But then again my most recent pads were for my 911...maybe my view is skewed.

mwar99 said:

Sometimes you get what you pay for. Maybe I'm pessimistic but I would be worried about paying less than $20 for brake pads. Even $41 seems cheap to me. But then again my most recent pads were for my 911...maybe my view is skewed.

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Well, I'm pretty much pessimistic and everything but then I'm kind of optimistic because I just wing it out for the best and it almost always works out well if not perfectly.
Now on these 20 to 41 dollar brake pads... How long have you been doing your own brakes? If you've only been doing it from the past five or six years or so then you are conditioned to accept the fact that there must be a problem or you can't trust them.
Now as far as online ones go I can't disagree too much because there are some junk ones out there for under $10 even and I'm sure the quality matches the price or not much above the price.
However, I can assure you that over the past 40+ years that I've been buying car parts from local discount parts stores all the way to the big three of AutoZone advance and O'Reilly currently... Note that I'm not really that old I just started buying car parts and working the cars at a very early age with my dad and then I far exceeded his ability and desire to work on cars.
Regardless, for many years and I don't mean 40 plus years ago but just 6 8 10 or 12 years ago you could walk in any AutoZone and get their duralast brand lifetime warranty brake pads for $16.99 to 19.99. This was a staple for them.
They didn't even have their premium and select ones like they do now. Then later they came out with their value ones which only had like a one year warranty which weren't worth the extra savings but the duralast ones had awesome red painted backing plates like almost dipped or powder coated which is better than most the other brands on the market.
Of course AutoZone also carried raybestos and Bendix in other more expensive brands but those duralast we're top-notch and lifetime warranty.
Trust me I have tested them.
And I mean real world testing not torture testing or for some YouTube channel.
I have used them on large e450 and e550 cutaway box chassis vehicles with duallys on the back with extremely large calipers and brake pads and I've also used their rotors for the front of this and these things last and work perfectly.
No I'm not the biggest fan of AutoZone and their duralast no longer come painted red or coated which was cool cuz you could always spot them on a car and be happy they were there but I've also used their current ones and I've used advance Auto Parts wherever and wherever select I think they're called that and then I've used O'Reilly's brake best and Brake best select.
I'm not a fan of the select and the premium cuz that's just a way to squeeze four to six more dollars out of you at least it used to be because it was 1999 for the standard ones but 23.99 for the better ones and most people of course will opt for the better ones when in reality the only difference was they came with a set of those peel and stick on backing anti-school things or whatever you want to call them and again in reality it made little to no difference.
So now see when you walk into one of these stores those same good quality if not even better than good quality lifetime warranty house brand brake pads are no longer 17 to $23. Three or four years ago you could luck out and get some for $26.99 but now even those are in the mid to high 30s if not 40.
So it's not that the quality was lower than or lower now it's just the prices have gone up so much so I will maintain that no you don't always get what you pay for and at that time you were getting a very good deal for what you were paying for. Now you pretty much do get what you pay for because you're going to pay $37 for those brake pads and they're not really even worth the $37 but you're getting pretty good and you're also paying pretty good amount.
I know people even 20 years ago who would go to the dealer to buy brake pads spending 52-58 for a set and it was a waste then and a waste now.
They would have been far better served to go by the $20 lifetime warranty ones.

You don't always get what you pay for, but you DO pay for what you get...

Totally agree on pricing at FLAPS these days. It's gotten out of hand.

zak99b5 said:

You don't always get what you pay for, but you DO pay for what you get...

Totally agree on pricing at FLAPS these days. It's gotten out of hand.

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Haha, that's the first time I've seen that acronym used and it's kind of cool.
I'm not certain it's actually accurate though or did you mean Normally everyone except Napa??? Lol
Because most of the other auto parts stores especially the big three have been pretty nice and even back in the 80s and '70s when we had fleeners and nationwise and Auto
works and their whole corporation of Nortgern Automotive I think it was called with Checkers Schucks Kragen Crown and Autoworks we're all pretty nice to customers with attractive product lines and performance parts and good advertising and Auto works was "Home of the lifetime warranty"
But for anyone who had main Auto Parts or genuine Auto Parts or any of the small but usually higher quality companies around or any Napa will certainly not want to use that term "Friendly" too loosely..

I have been using the Motocraft pads and they are really good quality. Made in Italy instead Mexico lol.

keny01998 said:

I have been using the Motocraft pads and they are really good quality. Made in Italy instead Mexico lol.

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Currently, there may be not much difference in buying Motorcraft especially since I have a commercial account with several of the dealers in the area and sometimes that discount is pretty good versus buying the ones at the local auto parts store because their prices have gone up so much..
If we're talking just a small percentage then I might buy the Motorcraft too but if you go back to probably pre 2008 to 2010 you would be paying a lot more if not double or well over double to buy Motorcraft pads versus the lifetime warranty pads I was buying at the local auto parts stores plus you don't get a lifetime warranty with those motor crafts so it was a no-go for me.
I have never once, NOT ONCE, not ever had any problems or complaints with any of these lifetime warranty pads from three different local auto parts chains now.
I have never had any complaint with their longevity or durability either as they have all lasted for a good number of years or just as long as pretty much any brake pad is expected to last.
Top that off with the fact that if I do keep the car long enough and then four or five years the pads do wear down, then I simply pop them off and run them three blocks up to the store and they hand me a brand new set.
It doesn't make me feel a bit better to have a Motorcraft box on a Ford or an AC Delco on a GM but I know lots of people over the years who that has done just that.
It makes me feel worse but only if I pay more for it because what makes me feel better is getting a perfectly proper working part at a very good deal and especially with a lifetime warranty!

That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and makes me sleep better at night.

TobyU said:

Currently, there may be not much difference in buying Motorcraft especially since I have a commercial account with several of the dealers in the area and sometimes that discount is pretty good versus buying the ones at the local auto parts store because their prices have gone up so much..
If we're talking just a small percentage then I might buy the Motorcraft too but if you go back to probably pre 2008 to 2010 you would be paying a lot more if not double or well over double to buy Motorcraft pads versus the lifetime warranty pads I was buying at the local auto parts stores plus you don't get a lifetime warranty with those motor crafts so it was a no-go for me.
I have never once, NOT ONCE, not ever had any problems or complaints with any of these lifetime warranty pads from three different local auto parts chains now.
I have never had any complaint with their longevity or durability either as they have all lasted for a good number of years or just as long as pretty much any brake pad is expected to last.
Top that off with the fact that if I do keep the car long enough and then four or five years the pads do wear down, then I simply pop them off and run them three blocks up to the store and they hand me a brand new set.
It doesn't make me feel a bit better to have a Motorcraft box on a Ford or an AC Delco on a GM but I know lots of people over the years who that has done just that.
It makes me feel worse but only if I pay more for it because what makes me feel better is getting a perfectly proper working part at a very good deal and especially with a lifetime warranty!

That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and makes me sleep better at night.

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Lol on made in Italy. Just had my rears done on my 2019 xlt at Ford on 4/ 2023. Have the old parts and the pads are made in Mexico.

Easy job to check and do. If they are not making any noise and not vibrating or wobbling when you brake hard ( sign of a warped rotor), get all you can from set you have on. In the past you were able to switch out pads and use the same rotors, just get them turned but now they don't make them thick enough to even get them turned. If you are doing fronts I would recommend drill and slotted with ceramic pads. Gives them a sporty look, keeps rotors cooler and suppose to stop better( I'm sure that would be debated).