How long do the brakes last?

[Go Horns!]

My car has 23,500 miles on it and I'm wondering how long the brakes are going to last. I don't track or autocross. I was thinking that I should have them changed out at the 30K inspection. Too soon? Too late? I just don't trust sensors alone and was wondering how many miles people were getting out of their brakes.

[pleasecorrupt]

Might want to bookmark this for future reference

http://www.zhpmafia.com/forums/showthread.php?1830-BMW-E46-ZHP-Preventative-maintenance-Issues-DIY-s

"4. Brake pads/rotors seem good for the mild mannered driver out to 100,000 miles....but is solely dependant on driving style."

so unless if you're planning on upgrading, you're far from due

[danewilson77]

Keep an eye on them, and conservatively change them out at 60k. Sound good?

HTC Thunderbolt+TT

[3ZHP]

I got 79K out of the originals, no track but a few auto crosses. Most of that mileage was highway or light city, hardly any grid lock. As for the sensors the work fine. I have always changed my rotors when I change pads.

On the other hand though; on my wives 323I I had a pad go metal to metal on the side with out the sensor. had to drive it that way for a week until I got the parts and the metal on metal rusted the shit out of that wheel. I didn't have any ill effects from it, just the pain of a 4 hour job cleaning the wheel with scotch bright and rubbing compound. That would have been horrible on ZHP wheels.

[Go Horns!]

I never updated this. Brakes lasted 82,000 miles. Still had pad and rotor left when they were changed, but had everything else off for a suspension refresh.

[az3579]

As long as you don't have abnormal wear on one side, the sensor does a pretty good job of notifying you when they're due. Since you don't track or autox, you get quite a bit of life out of them when the sensor trips, giving you time to replace them. BMW pads are designed to wear with the rotors, so when the light trips, expect to be doing both pads AND rotors.

Just check them at inspection; there is no need to replace them just yet.

[Dave1027]

There is no set mileage on brakes. As stated earlier, it's completely dependent on the way you drive. I'm sure you've seen the people who drive down the road using their brakes for no reason at all. Those are the kind of drivers who are lucky to get 40k out of brakes. Others like those who drive a lot of freeway miles and know what they are doing can make brakes last a long time. My truck is still on the original brakes at 148k and they still look good.

[san]

When I bought my car there were no records of ever replacing the brakes and I never changed them too in the last 2.5 years and 40k miles of ownership and my car has 137k miles now... it might still be on the original brakes, unless they were changed by the 1st owner (I'm the third). Still that's at least about 80k miles on a set of brakes...
on the other end of the spectrum a friend of mine bought a 2013 cpo 328i and the brakes on those had to be changed at 20k miles!
So I think it really depends on how you drive...


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