Brake wear indicator - no worky? (1 Viewer)

[lovetoski]

I had to do a quick and dirty front brake pad replacement Sunday (and missed a ski day to boot) all because I never heard a noise from the brake wear indicator. I know that front pads wear quickly, so I've been checking them from time to time, but I assumed that I would hear a noise like on every other car I've owned. Well, I did hear a noise, but it wasn't from the wear indicator - it was metal on metal - no pad left! Minor scoring to the disk - made do w/cheap pads for now. Will do a proper repair in a few weeks.

The old pads were Aisin, and had the wear indicators - with scoring on them, so they were dragging on the disks.

Is this uncommon? Should I visually check on a regular schedule? If this is not uncommon, then I recommend you all go check your pads now!

The pad replacement was only barely harder than an oil change by the way - no excuse for letting it go.

Hopefully my mistake saves somebody some $ and irritation.

 

[Landpimp]

I have always been able to hear the indicators, even mom can hear hers..........and she's old

 

[landtank]

I've never heard my indicators. I had a Camry where they actually broke off because the pad wore so far down. Of course I listen to the radio and cd rather load at times.

 

[lovetoski]

Does it matter of the wear indicators point up or down? Mine were pointing down (which is how I installed the new ones).

 

[CDN_Cruiser]

Same problem - no noise and ended up having to replace the rotors

 

[Pitbull]

I heard both my front and then my rear indicators within the last couple of weeks. Had to replace front and rear pads. I've found over the last 135K miles that my fronts wearout every 15-16K miles and the rears are good for 40-45K miles (had to go back and check all of my reciepts on the LC to come up with the 40-45K mile on the rears) the 15-16K fronts are easier to observe since that works out to about once a year. I also change the brake fluid out every 15K miles.