How long should rotors last?

[jbviajero]

True Brad and Transporter, my Octavia definitely stops more quickly. Another point in favour is that the corolla I mentioned weighed about 940kg - almost half a tonne less than the Octavia. That is a lot less mass to work against.

[K1W1]

Europeans seem to have a philosophy of using soft metal in rotors - even back when i was on the spanners. I have no idea why - anti-squeal / good bite when cold?

The Europeans see the rotors and the pads as a combined system that works together and wears together. It generally produces better wet weather braking as well.
The Japanese philosophy is to make the rotors impregnable and only have wear on the pads.

[gldgti]

its also just newer cars generally have softer rotors.... dad's got over 250,000 from the ones on his mk1 GLD, and they were'nt new when he got the car by any means.

I put second hand 280mm front rotors on my mk3, and I replaced them (they were within machining tolerances but it was easier for me to buy new ones) after another 130,000km...who knows how many km they had on them before that.

I think its 80% driving style.

[bobski]

I've had 5 cars for between 60 and 130ks and only replaced brake gear once. That time, I replaced my pads and rotors and went to a third party and got some aftermarket ones. Far, far better than what was on the car (XR6T which was underbraked) and half the price of doing it through the dealer (to their credit they machined the rotors for free).

Given the initial bite of the Octavia's braking, my theory is its pretty soft material on both sides and I wouldn't be surprised if I'm putting some new pads/rotors on before the 80k mark. I suppose it begs the question, has anyone here done over the 100k mark in an octavia without brake replacement?

And the comments on reading the traffic are dead on. Far too many people accelerate and brake with similar gusto and nothing will wear out the wearables faster.

[mintygreen]

If my wife drove the car, she'd be onto her 3rd set of pads by now because (a) she doesn't look up the road far enough & (b)she drives in stop/start traffic all the time.

My wife drives the car 95% of the time in 50/50 freeway/urban and drives moderately 'spirited' (looks nervously over shoulder)

60,000km changeover isn't unusual though....

Ok, so 60-75k change over isn't unreasonable, cool.

I'm keen to try the Remsa pads to cut down brake dust (my pet hate), are DBA rotors much different to OEM for cost/performance/longetivity ?

[woofy]

I've been told to expect brake pads at 60k, but not rotors. It definitely makes a difference if you have man or DSG/Auto, we have sold two cars at 90k with original pads and both were manual. My wife and I like to downshift first, then brake if needed. Someone once told me that brakes are cheaper and easier to replace, but we have never needed new clutches either....so maybe thats a bit of wrong dogma as well.

[hooba]

My new Mk5 Golf 1.9 TD, very gently driven, 30,00kms before the rear pads and rotors required changing.

Woofy - gears are for go, brakes are for slow.