Ask a Technician: How Often Should My Brakes Be Replaced, and How Can I Tell When It’s Time?
Brakes wear out and need to be replaced periodically. But how often should you be getting your brakes replaced? And what are those little warning signs that let you know it’s time to make a trip back to our dealership to get the work done?
Sterling McCall Toyota is here to help.
As a general rule of thumb, brakes should be replaced, or at least serviced, every 30,000 miles. In reality, however, it depends on the wear and tear the brakes receive on a daily basis. If you do a lot of heavy braking on narrow roads or driving through towns, you will wear down the brake pads and require maintenance far more quickly than somebody driving down 30,000 miles of open freeway. Check your owner’s manual or ask our dealership technician for a more detailed number.
Ideally, you can tell when it’s time to get your brakes replaced when you take your car in for a regular service appointment. Sterling McCall Toyota can help inform you about the condition of your brakes, both the brake pads and the discs themselves, and either tell you that they are worn to the point where they need to be replaced immediately, or give you notice that you’ll need to replace them soon.
Aside from the experts, however, there are a few signs that it’s time to get the brakes replaced. The most obvious sign is when your car fails to stop sharply when you put your foot on the brake pedal, but at this point, you probably have waited much too long and should have your vehicle serviced immediately.
How to check your brakes
If you want to check your brakes before they get to this point, one way is to inspect your brake pads visually. Sometimes you will have to remove your car’s wheel in order to do this, but on many modern cars, the pads are quite visible if you check around the outside of the wheel rim. You need at least a quarter of an inch of tread on the brake pad—if there is any less tread than this, book an appointment to have the brakes replaced immediately or you risk damaging the brake discs themselves.
An alarming sign that you need to replace the brake pads ASAP is a metallic screeching noise you might hear when you put your foot on the brake pedal. This suggests you have worn away the brake pad’s tread entirely, which is doing serious damage to the brake disc. Again, head over to our service department and get this fixed straight away! You would probably be able to hear this screeching with the windows up, but not necessarily (if you were listening to the radio or had the A/C running while your windows were up, say). Do a sound check with the window down and the radio off if you think your brakes might be reaching the end of their lifetime.
All modern cars will have disc brakes on the front wheels, and many have them on the rear wheels as well. It’s important to bear in mind that both (or all four) brake pads should ideally be replaced at the same time. Also remember that once the brakes have been replaced, the new pads will take a while to bed in (around 100 miles of driving), and you should be careful to avoid heavy braking during this period.
Replacing brakes is a fairly straightforward procedure, but since brakes are critical to the safe functioning of a car, it’s often best to trust a professional to replace them, rather than attempt a DIY job.
Still have questions? Contact our service department and we will be happy to help you!