Brake wear - brake life

[HotCookCpl]

My smart and I were at the dealer a few weeks ago for the 20K maintenance. When I was leaving the service manager said the brakes looked to be at about 50%. Does this seem about right or should I expect to be doing better?

With my old, manual transmission, Saturn it seemed the brakes would last me much longer (but I'm not sure exactly what the interval was). I have over 180K on the Saturn and I want to say I only replaced the brakes 2 or 3 times (I could be wrong though). I'm pretty sure my driving style is not excessive when it comes to breaking, but I don't have a clutch pedal any more either so I may not be coasting as much as I used to.

The brakes are squeaking a bit now from time to time and wonder if I may be doing something wrong or if these brake pads just wear faster.

Any thoughts?

[unicycle]

Interesting, esp considering what you wrote about the Saturn, which gives us a point of comparison.

I brought my smart in for the 30,000 service recently and said that I didn't want them to swap out the brake pads unless they needed it -- that is, only if they looked pretty shot. The way I drive, I rarely use the brakes, so I figured they'd look pretty new, and I was right. I may need to have them replaced in a few weeks when I return for the 40k -- I'll post about that in a month or so. So far, my brakes are great -- no squeaks, nothin' -- but again, they've only had minimal use.

[SmartDigger]

Do you fill up the tank at half ? I would wait another 10,000. You can see the pads from outside the rim. check them yourself if you feel comfortable doing so.

[sunnyokanagan]

For greater longevity, you can swap the inside and outside pads around. The inside ones wear more quickly.

[HotCookCpl]

Originally Posted by SmartDigger

Do you fill up the tank at half ? I would wait another 10,000. You can see the pads from outside the rim. check them yourself if you feel comfortable doing so.

LOL, no I don't fill the tank at half, I'm mostly just curious if these pads will be wearing faster than I'm used to, or, if my drving style with this car could be the issue?

As for looking at the pads, I'm not really sure what to look for. I work in engineering so I certainly can take a measurement or two, but I'm not really into cars so I don't know what I should be looking for.

As for the brakes squealing, it seems to be intermittent and on the right side only, so I don't know what that's about either.

Thanks for the help.

[2micro4u]

Depends on your driving but I had to change mine at 22K

[Woody14619]

On my old Saturn I had to change them every 50K or so, and expect about the same. I'm only about 15K in, so I can't even get a point to compair against, but when I hit the 20K service I'll add this to the list of "can you check X"?

[SmartDigger]

Damp air could produce your rough sound. The rotors get a bit ruff ( rust) when they sit on a rainy day. if parked in a way one side gets more wet than another that could explain the diff. side to side. Do they sound this way after driving for a bit?

[Wdhitch]

34,000 miles as of this morning.... and we drive it like a porshe... pads still at 50%... may change then at 40k

[Carlarm]

Does the smart have any mechanism to inform the driver when the pads need to be replaced? On my Mercedes there are electrical probes embedded in the brake pads that make contact with the rotor when they get worn out causing the (O) symbol to light up on the dash. On some other cars there on bumps around the edge of the rotor that make contact with the brake pads when they become worn out causing a pulsation in the brake pedal.