Talked to an old timer about brake pad drag and now I'm questioning everything

A retired mechanic named Dave was hanging around the supply house last week. He watched me grab a new set of pads for an OTIS and just said "You know 90% of those get swapped too early, right?" Told me he used to run them till the wear indicators were almost gone and never had a callback. I've always changed them the second they hit the mark. Now I don't know. Anyone ever push pads past the normal replacement point on purpose?

4 comments

4 Comments

patkelly2mo ago

Dave at the supply house sounds exactly like the old guy who used to work on my '72 F100 back in the day. He had a rule of thumb - if the pad was still thick enough to cover the rivet heads, it had life left in it. I laughed at that until I actually tried it once on my own truck. Drove those pads down to almost nothing, maybe a sixteenth of an inch left, and honestly the stopping power never changed. Still made me nervous every time I hit the brakes though. Probably why I'm the guy who changes his oil every 3,000 miles like clockwork but lets his brake pads run bare. At least I own the hypocrisy.

reeselewis1mo ago

Ngl patkelly, you owning that hypocrisy is half the battle though right? But I gotta ask - you ever actually measure the rotor thickness on that F100 after running them that low? Cause I did that once on my '89 K1500 and found out the hard way that the pads weren't the only thing getting thin. The rotors were warped to hell and I ended up having to replace everything anyway. Just curious if that old rule of thumb checked out for the rest of the system too.

nora541mo agoMost Upvoted

@reeselewis makes a good point about the rotors. People forget pads are just part of the system. Ran a set on my old Dodge once, pads were fine but the rotors had that blue tint from heat. Had to measure with a dial caliper, found they were below minimum spec by a solid 0.020. Ended up doing rotors and pads anyway. The stopping power might not change until you need to stop hard on a downhill. That's when warped rotors show up.

rayy832mo ago

Take a measurement with a caliper next time instead of eyeballing it. I do the same thing with my trucks and found that if I catch them at 3/32 of an inch, there's still plenty of meat left for another 5,000 miles without losing your nerve. Just keep an ear out for the squealer tab, that's your real warning system, not the thickness.