How long should brakes last?

[FlyingBarney]

Doesn't sound right to me Pink. How long a set of pads lasts though, does depend on driving style. Watch the cars in front of you going down hills - some have brakes applied top to bottom while others will light up here and there at most. Use the transmission to slow you going down hills, starting with the over-drive and then 2nd or even (through pretty much never except off road) 1st. John Muir, the wise and thoughtful mechanic who wrote the Idiots Guide to VW mechanics, wrote that "brakes apply a negative function - use them sparingly" or something to that effect. Either way Pink, it sure sounds like yours wore out unreasonably fast - How many clicks? We've had Hazel (with a fresh ccautos brake job) for 9 months and 15,000km and have yet to even give the brakes a thought - Maybe next year... Good luck with it

I am learning to use the O/D more and more... and... it begs a question for me. Is there excessive wear on the engine as a result of lower gears when going downhill then? Because if there is, then it might be a trade-off between replacing the brakes and taking care of the engine...

Simon

[jessef]

Engine braking with the Delica is better than pushing on the tiny pads providing you don't shift from OD doing 100km/h to L.

[konadog]

Engine braking is perfectly OK if you just use common sense and go easy (like pretty much everything!). Obviously you don't want to over rev the motor, esp. with a sudden, extreme down shift, but careful, controlled engine braking with the occasional dab on the brakes is much safer than careening down a hill, practically in neutral, pressing hard on the brakes - I love clicking that OD button and having the bus gear down "GRRRRR" to give me that added control

[FalcoColumbarius]

I tend to press the accelerator to bring the RPM up to the next gear when gearing down. I did, however, in a momentary lapse of reason, shift from OD straight into second (I don't know what I was thinking) and I noticed that the tranny went through all the gears systematically ~ so perhaps it is a fool proof safety feature. I have not done this since, nor do I plan on doing it ever again .

Falco.

[sid]

My van did the same, it would make a rough grinding kind of sound and i had just re done the brakes, fresh fiuid, new pads and new rotors, Pulled the fronts to check and the pads are like over 90% still. Seems that this problem occured when the braking system is stressed ie very hot and when the pads were still quite new and the tolerances for expansion are quite small. Now that my brakes are worked in a bit and now have 1 year and 10+ thousand km's it is business as usual. The trick with these heavy vehicles with adequate (at best) braking systems, is to drive them accordingly, engine brake as much as possible and you are probably gonna be ok. i mean they are so un-aerodynamic it like they have the "mitsubishi auto decellerate" option... just take your foot off the throttle, you'll be slowin down.

sid.