brake pads 70% worn at 15.5k miles? 2018 Mazda3

MinuteNoodles

As above, my local main dealer tried the "worn X%" thing on me so I asked them what the actual thickness was and they said 3mm. That is the thickness at which you advise the customer that a set of pads will need changing before the next service, not that they need doing right now. Anything above 3mm and just leave them.

At 15000 miles you've been shafted unless you spend all your time driving around with your foot on the brake, especially given that the commuting you've done won't have meant much braking.

Jonesya

photome said:

Jonesya said:

I'd say they've worn out prematurely, you can get 50,000 miles out of a set of pads without difficultly.

Except we don’t know they were worn out.

we don’t know the thickness left, but 30% left, isn’t worn out

We can only go on the information given, if they've gone through 70% of the pad material in 15.5k miles, then assuming the rate of wear is reasonably constant, that implies 100% of the pad material gone by 22k miles. 
Yes they may have lasted some more miles, quite likely they could have done, but either way they are still wearing out quicker than you'd expect.

Mercdriver

You can also get fewer miles than the OP has.  It all depends on various things: driving style, any faults with calipers etc.  

Homer_home

Next time thank the garage for bringing it to your attention and you will change them when they need changing.

Then when you get home pop the tyre off and have a quick look how much meat is actually left on them and because brakes are cheap and easy to change , ask a mate to do it for beer money

Grumpy_chap

Or, if you don't have any mates confident to mess about with a critical safety part of you car, ask Fred if he can link you a YOUTUBE video of how to do it.

I am with the category that would prefer to have the surety of correctly trained person to fix these things.  That does not extend to being 'pursuaded' to swap components prematurely.

facade

AdrianC said:

Never mind %ages, how thick was the material left on your old ones?

This.

The MOT minimum is 1.5mm (or the wear marker if present)

Say the pads are 10mm thick when new, the minimum is 1.5mm, so the wearable/useable thickness is 8.5mm. 80% of that is near enough 6mm, so the pads would be 4mm thick- only just below half what they started at.

So it possibly took 15,000 miles of town driving with constant stopping to use around half the actual pad thickness- not unreasonable, and highly likely with an auto, I don't recall whether the transmission type was mentioned.

sweetsand

daveyjp said:

70% worn doesn't actually mean anything. 

I would also have thought on such a new car it would have a low pad warning, either an actual light or pads which squeal once they get too low.

I think you only get that on bigger cars or higher end smaller models as i found at at work when i said to someone the break wear light should come on and he said his car which was a common ford Fiesta basic model, so not all cars have them.

williamgriffin

sweetsand said:

daveyjp said:

70% worn doesn't actually mean anything. 

I would also have thought on such a new car it would have a low pad warning, either an actual light or pads which squeal once they get too low.

I think you only get that on bigger cars or higher end smaller models as i found at at work when i said to someone the break wear light should come on and he said his car which was a common ford Fiesta basic model, so not all cars have them.

Is a break light something to do with tachographs? If so they're right as fiestas don't need them. 

daveyjp

sweetsand said:

daveyjp said:

70% worn doesn't actually mean anything. 

I would also have thought on such a new car it would have a low pad warning, either an actual light or pads which squeal once they get too low.

I think you only get that on bigger cars or higher end smaller models as i found at at work when i said to someone the break wear light should come on and he said his car which was a common ford Fiesta basic model, so not all cars have them.

True regarding the warning light, but squealing pads are more common fitment. Its what my car has and they work.

in fact I have just found this from Mazda 3 site.

Brake Pad Wear Indicator

When the disc brake pads become worn, the built-in wear indicators contact the disc plates. This causes a screeching noise to warn that the pads should be replaced.

AdrianC

I suspect what's  happened is that the garage have said "first service at 15k, will they last until the next service, another 15k?", but that's got a bit lost behind chinese whispers and an assumption that They Are Out To Scam You.