If you are about to replace your car’s brake pads, you may be wondering “how many brake pads does a car have”? Continue reading this article to find out the details if you want to know how many brake pads does a car have.
It depends on your braking system, the company you work for, and the type of vehicle you drive. Typically, though, the answer is either four or eight.
Please continue reading for more information.
How Many Brake Pads Per Wheel?
You need to understand how car brakes work first. The crucial braking system in a car is made up of various parts. If your car has disc brakes, which the majority of modern cars do, the braking system is made up of a caliper, two brake pads, and a brake disc that is fixed to the wheel and spins at the same speed.
The brakes are made from a hydraulic system, this means when you compress the brake pedal, brake fluid is sent to the pistons in the caliper. The pressure behind the caliper causes them to push the brake pads towards the discs, creating friction to slow the wheel down.
There are two brake pads, an outer and an inner pad, on each wheel. When the caliper clamps around the rotor (disc), it pushes both brake pads towards the spinning rotor.
Modern sports cars typically have disc brakes on both the front and rear axels, while the majority of other vehicles have drum wheels on the back and disc brakes on the front.
As each wheel with a disc brake uses 2 brake pads, if all four of your car’s wheels have these brakes installed you will have a total of 8 brake pads on your car.
To further complicate matters, some cars do not use four disc brakes, so some cars do not have eight brake pads. To find out why, continue reading.
What is the Difference Between Disc and Drum Brakes?
The number of brake pads your car has will depend on how many disc brakes it uses. All of the wheels on older cars and trucks have drum brakes, and the system does not include brake pads.
Drum brakes are a wheel cylinder, brake shoes, springs, and a drum that function in place of brake pads and calipers.
In a car with drum brakes, the brake fluid is sent to pistons inside the wheel cylinder, pushing the springs into the brake shoes when you press the brake pedal.
The car slows down as a result of friction between the drum and the brake shoes as they are forced out. As you can see, these brakes do not use brake discs or pads; instead, the friction required to stop is produced by the friction between the brake shoes and the drum.
Drum brakes are being installed on fewer and fewer vehicles since the development of disc brakes. Drum brakes have lost popularity because they are known to overheat and do not provide as much stopping power while steering as disc brakes.
Since all the moving components in drum brakes are enclosed inside the drum, this can lead to overheating of the components. But since the working components of disc brakes are visible, this helps to avoid rust, debris buildup, and overheating.
There are car models that still use drum brakes on the rear wheels in 2022. It makes sense for these wheels to have disc brakes because they are known to perform better because the weight of the car shifts to them when you brake.
Drum brakes are still effective and won’t put you in danger if you have them on your back wheels, but disc brakes offer the best steering and stopping performance for higher-speed driving.
How Long Do the Brake Pads Last?
How long do car brakes last? As far as the question of how many brake pads on a car goes, there is no single answer, as it depends on the car model. The same holds true for the lifespan of brake pads, which typically ranges from 25,000 to 60,000 miles. How the owner uses the car affects how long the brake pads last in that car.
What Factors Affect the Life of Front and Back Brake Pads
The life of the front and back brake pads of a car depends on many factors including how the owner drives the vehicle. The following list includes some of the elements that affect how long brake pads last.
Where You Drive
The brake pads would last longer if you drove your car primarily on the road as opposed to driving short distances. The reason for this is that, in contrast to highways, traffic lights, intersections, and roundabouts are more frequently encountered in urban areas.
How Much Weight the Car is Carrying
The weight of the car is another element that has a big impact on how long the brake pads last on your car. For instance, a car would be significantly heavier and put more strain on the brake pads when carrying four or five passengers. On the other hand, if the car is lighter, slowing it down will be simpler.
Do You Need to Replace the Brake Rotors at the Same Time?
Pads don’t last as long as brake rotors. Rotor lifespans typically range from 70,000 to 100,000 miles.
Brake pads last between 30,000 and 60,000, depending on driving style and the material used in the pad.
There are separate brake rotors in the front and back of your car. They don’t apply to everyone. The front rotors are thicker and serve a different purpose than the rear rotors.
The majority of your car’s stopping power and braking force are produced by the front rotors. Although they deteriorate more slowly, the rear ones continue to stop the car.
You may want to know:
Do You Need to Replace All Your Brake Pads at Once?
You don’t need to change all your brake pads on all four wheels at the same time. Front pads do wear faster than rear pads, so it is worth considering having the pads on both front wheels changed together.
You won’t be able to tell when the previous owner last changed the brake pads if you have never had to replace them.
In this situation, ask the mechanic to quickly check the brake pads on all four wheels. If more than one wheel requires new brake pads, replace them all at once.
Brake pads are cheap, but labor costs aren’t, so it makes more sense to have one visit to the car shop than go back again in the near future to have more pads fitted.
FAQs
Are Front and Rear Brake Pads the Same?
Brake pads for the front and back wheels are different from one another and cannot be used together. Both the calipers and the pad shape are unique.
You’ll soon be able to tell if you’re trying to attach front pads to rear calipers or vice versa because they won’t fit.
Are Brake Pads Specific to Each Car?
Brake pads are not specific to each car. Often a car manufacturer will partner with a brake manufacturer as it makes better financial sense than developing a brand new design themselves.
Sharing the design and manufacturing costs of more complex parts, like an automobile engine, between two or more automakers is becoming more and more common.
Often a car brand is owned by another.
These brands’ parts will frequently be interchangeable.
The brake pads that fit your car will also work for other car brands owned by a parent company if you conduct an online search for brake pads. For instance, VW owns Seat, Skoda, Audi, and Porsche, and many brake pads will fit all these brands.
Are Lifetime Brake Pads Worth It?
Yes, if you want to keep your car for a long time. No, if you intend to sell your car in less than three years and travel less than 12,000 miles annually.
Recall that brake pads typically last for more than 30,000 miles.
Although some brake manufacturers and auto repair shops offer free replacement pads for life, they still charge for the labor involved in doing so.
It’s worth looking at the terms and conditions of these offers as sometimes the replacement brake pads that are fitted will be of a lower standard in terms of stopping power than you would like.
Some lifetime brake pad warranties will only be honored if the original purchaser of the brake pads is still the owner of the vehicle. Some, much less frequently, will permit a car’s new owner to take advantage of the promotion that the previous owner agreed to.
Summary: How Many Brake Pads Does a Car Have?
How many brake pads does a car have? Each wheel on all automobiles has two brake pads. The total number of brake pads on each vehicle is eight. In contemporary cars, each wheel also has one rotor, giving the vehicle a total of four. All cars have one brake caliper per wheel – as long as the car has pads and rotors and not the older style drum brakes.
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