Brakes, rotors and stopping the car
 

Forgive me for planning ahead, but my HCH MT has 32k miles and I am thinking about the brakes.

At my 10k service, the report detailed the wear on the brakes, and I believe that I should be thinking about changing the pads at about 50k, plus or minus. I have/or do own an F150, Isuzu Trooper, Nissan PU, Merkur XR4Ti, Dodge G. Caravan, Chevy Cavilier, and a Chevy Chevette.

I have always done the brakes myself. I have even replaced calipers myself.

So, the questions I put to this honorable group are:

Has anyone yet replaced the pads/rotors? At what mileage?
Did you use any special parts or stock parts?
Were there any gotchas you noticed?

BTW, I have 195k on the F150 and have never had to change the back (drum) pads. Should I even look at the rear drum brakes.

Suggestions?

Re: Brakes, rotors and stopping the car
 

I checked my front pads at 50k, and there's plenty left.

Re: Brakes, rotors and stopping the car
 

I have 60k on our HCH. Plenty of wear left on both pads and rear linings. The brakes were very rough at 50k, so both rotors and drums were turned. Other than that, all OK. Looks like the tire will go for 80-90k, similar to the 94k I got on the original tires on our '97 Civic 4-door!

Re: Brakes, rotors and stopping the car
 

When I had NY state safety inspection done in April, the station asked if I had already replaced the pads because they had so little wear. Even when I explained the regen system to him, he couldn't believe they were the original factory pads. So I am hoping to get 100K out of the brakes.

As for the tires though, one of the **** Bridgestones developed a flat spot / thump. Since I had 35K at the time, I just bought two Kelly Springfields. I didn't find out until after a week that the Kellys aren't "87S" tires, they only go to 35psi, not 44 like the OEM tires. At least I know they won't be on it that long. A year, tops. Since I'm doing about 35K a year, I had those put on the front, and the remaining two Bridgestones on the back. I'm up to about 40K now, and when the rears get bald I'll try the Goodyears on the front. I want an aggressive tread pattern, because the Bridgestones were useless in the snow. My mileage seems a little off since I got these as well, but before I could be certain, the air conditioning weather hit. Oh, well. I'd rather be comfortable than squeeze that extra 5 miles out of a gallon. As long as I can stay above 40 mpg, I'm three times ahead of what I had before.