Hi guys!

I have a question regarding brakes on my LS. I recently had the brakes done, and my mechanic had to do the rear ones. Those I knew were gone. I thought the front ones would need to be done, too, since they have not been changed since I have had the car (got it last December), but he said the front brakes were fine. Is it normal on the LS430 to wear the rear brakes faster than the front?

 

I got 50,000 miles on the front and 66,000 mile on the rears. That's since the car was new in 2004.

 

Normally the front brakes do most of the work on any car - primarily because of weight transfer that occurs during deceleration. So in many cases front pads wear faster.

The front pads and calipers on the LS are quite a bit bigger than the rear pads and calipers so the total wear on the rear pads over time may be slightly more because the rear pads are quite a bit smaller that the front pads. Ideally the pads should be sized proportionally to wear front and back evenly.

 

Yes, typically the fronts wear faster but with variances in driving style, production run, material wear, it could make the rear wear faster of course. Maybe you drive in reverse a lot...

 

Oh, THAT was funny! I like it! haha...

Thanks guys for the responses. I guess I'ma just have to not drive so much in reverse, though it IS my preferred style of driving.

 

It's likely that the previous owner only changed the front pads and left the rears alone at some point during their ownership. And no, given the same starting point and a correctly operating brake system, you won't wear the rear pads faster than the fronts.

 

on an LS430, the front brakes wear slightly faster than the rear.

 

On most cars the fronts will wear out a lot faster than the rears because the fronts usually account for 70% of the braking. Its usually 70/30 ratio. My previous chrysler 300 had the fronts changed before 66,000 miles while the rears still had over 50% pad left at that time. Idk maybe Lexus has a different ratio.

 

I thought that the fronts should wear faster, too. I guess maybe the person who had it before me changed them before she got rid of it. She took immaculate care of the car. I guess she had all her service done at the Lexus dealer here in Salt Lake. My service guy said she was a cute lil' old lady.

 

for the record, front to rear brake wear depends completely on the setup. yes, the front brakes do the majority of the work.....but they also have far more pad material. most cars wear through front brakes a little quicker than rear. some cars (such as IS250) will wear the rear brakes out slightly quicker than front. the ES350 will go through 2-3 REAR brake jobs before the fronts are ever needed. It all depends on the setup.

The LS430 typically wears brakes out pretty evenly, the fronts usually wear out just a little bit quicker than the rears.

 

So is it best to change fronts and rears at the same time even though the rears have a little more pad on them?

 

Only if you like to flush money away. The fronts usually last about twice as long as the rear. I've driven around a million miles in my life and I've never once changed front and rear pads on a car at the same time.

 

Agree - I change a set of pads change pads when apprx 3/4 of the brake material has worn away. I prefer not to push it. Waiting until the wear indicator light goes on is a mistake because the wear indicators are expensive and they must be replaced if they go off due to brake pad wear. Every time you have your tires rotated just ask the tech to visually check the brakes and let you know how much pad material is left. If you rotate tires every 5k miles you should never have a surprise with your brakes. If you want a reference point, just order a set of front and rear pads from someplace like Irontoad.com - pads are $50 a set for OEM Toyota front and back. When your pads wear down you will already have a set waiting and save money by diy or asking a shop to use your OEM parts.

 

Thanks for all the info, guys.

 

When I replaced my pads at 25K mi, there was about 1mm of material remaining on all of them. PO was a retiree, probably used it for local driving (hence 21K mi after 4 yrs).