Warning: I ran my pads down to the backing plates because I believed that "brakes feel fine" myth

Ruby Foster · 2026-10-27T22:30:03.836563+00:00

For years I skipped pulling a wheel to check pad thickness. My logic was simple: the pedal felt good, the car stopped straight, so the pads had to be fine. Then a guy at a tire shop off Route 1 in Saugus pointed at my front rotor through the wheel spokes and said, "That's metal on metal, friend." I pulled the wheel in his lot and the pad was gone. Not thin, gone. The piston was grinding the rotor. Cost me $310 for rotors and pads when a $40 set of pads six months earlier would have done it. The car never squealed and never pulled. So much for the squealer tab saving me. Now I check thickness with a cheap $6 gauge every oil change. What's the dumbest thing you ever let slide because the car "felt fine"?

Rigidtalk

Loading…

Warning: I ran my pads down to the backing plates because I believed that "brakes feel fine" myth | Brake Pad Diaries - Rigidtalk