At what thickness should front brake pads be replaced?

These have just over 45k miles, and about 7mm remaining.

Drivers

Passenger

 

2-3mm

 

I'm at 9 years and 86,000 miles and still on original pads. I'm estimating I can go until 120,000 miles.

 

when the wear is at the bottom of that slice/groove in the middle of the pad material

 

Service manual limit is 1.0 mm (.039"). Your pads and caliper are covered in mud though. Are you cleaning and lubricating your calipers every 2 years per the maintenance booklet? If the pistons or retention pins seize up from mud, the pads can wear unevenly and you won't get full life out of the pads.

 

Thanks. No I am not. The dealer did most of the maintenance but I did the last couple. I will clean and lube them at 50k.

 

When you do replace them, swap the setup to 4Runner Pads, discs, calipers, and dust shields.. worth the money.

 

2-3mm are the failure/replace now.....3-4 means they have a little bit of life left... not much..

 

Plenty left on those. Check them every 5k miles when you rotate the tires.

 

For reference, 11mm is roughly new, so 7mm is like 60%

They would benefit from a good blast with the washer.

 

Start thinking about replacing pads at 4/32", replace at no thinner than 2/32"

 

I always like when you bring your car to the shop and they say "you have about 30% remaining on your pads, you should probably replace them now"... really? should I also dump the 5 gallons of gas remaining in my tank before I fill up?

 

Man! That’s awesome! I just got an alignment on a 2001 Tundra which I had installed EBC slotted rotors with yellow pads 8k miles earlier (yep, eight). The tech said my pads were down to metal. I took a look and sure enough, they were just about to start squealing. Went back to OE pads and rotors. Old Tundras eat brakes though. I’d say at 2-3 mm, start getting ready for some brakes.

 

I'm at 91k miles on my original pads and my PA safety inspection in October told me I had 3 or so mm left. I'll replace them this week along with my rotors only out of convenience because I'm off work. Otherwise I'd let those bad boys ride.

 

That's a significantly bigger job than replacing pads. Then again, the way the pads last, doing the upgrade when replacing the wheel bearing won't be much extra work.

 

Still got a bunch of life left in those pads, as long as they're wearing even.