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99 Blazer - Everlasting brake pads?


Tangent
03-10-2005, 05:04 PM
This isn't a problem, I just want to compare my experience with others. My wife's Blazer is at over 100,000 miles and it's still on its original set of brake pads. (4 wheel discs) I checked them a couple of weeks ago and they all still have a health amount of pad material left on them. It sees mostly around town driving so it's not like it's all highway miles that would be easy on the pads either. Did GM just get things perfectly right with these brakes or am I just really lucky? What kind of mileage did you have the first time you had to change your pads?

BlazerLT
03-10-2005, 05:07 PM
This isn't a problem, I just want to compare my experience with others. My wife's Blazer is at over 100,000 miles and it's still on its original set of brake pads. (4 wheel discs) I checked them a couple of weeks ago and they all still have a health amount of pad material left on them. It sees mostly around town driving so it's not like it's all highway miles that would be easy on the pads either. Did GM just get things perfectly right with these brakes or am I just really lucky? What kind of mileage did you have the first time you had to change your pads?

Have you owned the truck since new?

Tangent
03-10-2005, 05:18 PM
My wife bought it at ~15,000 so I'd be surprised if they were changed already at that point. Even if they were that's still 85,000 miles that I'm positive about.

TonyMazz
03-10-2005, 06:56 PM
This isn't a problem, I just want to compare my experience with others. My wife's Blazer is at over 100,000 miles and it's still on its original set of brake pads. (4 wheel discs) I checked them a couple of weeks ago and they all still have a health amount of pad material left on them. It sees mostly around town driving so it's not like it's all highway miles that would be easy on the pads either. Did GM just get things perfectly right with these brakes or am I just really lucky? What kind of mileage did you have the first time you had to change your pads?


Your experience is like mine....front brakes 120K back brakes 144K...amazing eh...my 97 blazer went through brake pads in 36K miles...I like my 99....too

dmbrisket 51
03-10-2005, 09:37 PM
well if the person that ownd it b4 you is like me, they dont mess with breaks, so its to their shop they go, make a set of roters, harden them and then high matalic break pads

wolfox
03-11-2005, 10:40 AM
Nope, Chevrolet has switched to a ceramic pad formulation around that time. They wear much longer, and though have superior braking performance, are very gentle on the rotors. I have recently redone my brakes on my '95 with NAPA Ceramix, OEM style replacements for just under $50 for the pads, and put in real AC/Delco rotors on the front. She stops like never before, silently, no dusting of my custom wheels, and with absolutely no noticable brake fade on the long down-hill runs. They also run much cooler, and when they finally seat in after a good 100 miles of slow, stop and go use around town - are peerless when compared to the original rotors and semi-metallics that truck left the shwroom with.

Replace post 2000+ model year pads with ceramic material pads *only*, anything before then can benefit massivley from the upgrade. Though I do recommend getting new rotors with those pads. The combination will last for more than 75,000+ miles if done right. I just wish that they made a ceramic formulation for rear shoes on drum brake systems. If you have 4-wheel disc brakes, you may go ceramic all around!

Sorry, but harder rotors and higher metallic components in standard, steel wool impregnated semi-metallic shoes gets you much more noise, cracking of pads, and chews the life out of your rotors quickly. You will note that the ceramics are chamfered, and have a slot formed in the center of the pad. THe former decreases the changes of the pads setting in askew in a panic stop, and the channel makes the two different surfaces oscilate at a much higher frequency - far out of the range of human hearing and as a consequence, putting more stopping power where it belongs - on the rotor surfaces. Semi-metallics are falling by the wayside IMO. Rebuilt two Dodge Caravans' brake systems with ceramics, one with 4-wheel discs on a heavily loaded Town & Country that had a history of warped rotors within 500 miles of service and eating pads like there were no tomorrow. (Semi-Metallic ones at that) Both drivers have reported back to me that they are having excellent, reliable braking at all times, at all loads. The T&C has been rolling for the past 4 years on the replacement/rebuild I have performed. Thus far, never better in the owner's opinion!

BlazerLT
03-11-2005, 02:10 PM
AC dElco brake pads and rotors are exceptionally good. But they are expensive.

I made the mistake of swapping them out for new ones when I recently did my brake job. Stupid me, the Delco Durastop rotors are really expensive and I should have just gotten them resurfaced.

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