when to changed breaks ?

elexes

im just about to hit 20,000 miles in my car and im just wondering how often brakes should be changed . naturally ill be getting the car serviced around then and will ask for the opinion of the garage but how often is considered normal ?

prospect

Has the performance of the breaks declined? If so have them checked immediatly.

BrianD3

You have a Focus yeah? There are reports of very premature brake pad wear on these eg after 15-20k miles. Normally, brake pads should last anywhere from 30-100k depending on how the car is driven and what sort of roads it's driven on. You will know whether your brakes need replacing soon if you take off the wheels and check the pad thickness. On my car, the pads should be replaced when they get to 3.5 mm thickness, other cars are probably similar. Remember that there are two pads on each side - one outside the disc, the other inside.

elexes

yep its a 04 focus

so that leads me onto another question

should i try and get better proformance breaks ? i try not to break much and if i do its usually not hard but stopping fast is a aera i would have no probloms investing money dont wana end up looking over the edge of a cliff thinking ffs i thought this only happened in movies

a_ominous

I got 65000 miles from my last set of brake pads. Well I bought car at 35000 and hadn't replaced pads until 100000 recently. And they weren't worn down completely or even to minimum. But I replaced them as the wheel hubs were off for another job (non-critical but necessary).

Performance pads: IMHO aimed at people with more money than sense. Useful in limited circumstances, like a race track where there is a lot of hard braking and with skilled drivers who might notice the difference. I accept that many race track innovations do make it to road cars, but the track is where the innovations get tested.