Been reading all the posts about brake pads and rotor wear recently. Got 4800 miles on my G35 6MT sedan and did 2 days of track time at Watkins Glen last week. Brakes were fine at the track, but I wanted to recheck them again when we got home. So, my boyfriend and I are looking at the rotors and the pad wear last night and there's still a decent amount of pad left, though the back is a good bit more worn than the front.
HOWEVER, when we're looking at the calipers, especially on the rear, we notice that there is a small metal clip on the inside of a caliper very close to the rotor. He says "you know even though you have ample pad left, this metal clip is gonna make contact with the rotor and score it before your pads are really worn to the point where you would normally replace them. Better keep an eye on this." A bell goes off in my head as I recall numerous posts by folks who were surprised that they had to have rotors replaced with brake pads sooner than anyone would expect with no good explanation from Infiniti techs. We think this inside metal clip is scoring rotors before the brake pads are gone--so you really need to replace pads earlier to prevent it. That sucks.

Anybody else have thoughts on this or notice that small clip on the inside of the brake calipers?

Dreams garnet fire/graphite leather 6MT 2003.5 premium/aero/winter

 

i will look tonight. i have 16,000 on my G and I might be able to see if it is close to scoring it

Better Life thru Chemistry

 

A simple solution for this would be to grind down the metal clip on the pad to prevent it from prematurely scoring the rotor. As long as the clip is not ground too far, this should be perfectly safe to do.

2003 G35 Sedan
-Clear Sidemarkers
-35% Tint

 

How about infiniti do that so they cant fung me out of rotors the same day they fung me into new pads.

 

i forgot to look and i even rotated my tires. I will pull a couple wheels off tonight I promise

I think I am going to have to by a micrometer for this car

Better Life thru Chemistry

 

dreamsenoi,
Yes, i concur with your man's opinion that the brake spring will probably score the rotor if the pads are allowed to wear down too far.

I also looked at my pads in detail last night, the front right is almost gone, front left is ~1/4 remaining, and the rears have minimal wear..

I stripped my trunk completely bare (down to the metal) at about 5000 miles. I think the EBD is sensing that and braking more on my front brakes than normal.

I have 16k miles on my car. Bought it 5/3/03

Sean

Better Life thru Chemistry

 

Got 4945 miles on my car in 3 months. Did a couple days hard driving. Today, I took it in for a brake check. First the tech drives my car and says "your brakes are fine. What are your concerns?" So I tell him they are grabbier than they were and I want him to take off the wheels and measure the pads and look at the rotors anyway (I'm a quantitative evidence-based person)
.
He was very congenial and we did just that. Front brakes were fine, very little wear on pads. No warping on rotors. Back pads had a lot of wear and he said I'd get another 1,000 to 2,000 miles. We could see wear on the rotors, but nothing to worry about yet. He said they turn the rotors on the car as a routine thing when they do the pads.

The number of questions they asked me about vibration sensations from the wheels while driving made me ask them if they had many reports of rotor warping. (3 different people asked me 3 or 4 questions.) They said no, but still I wonder.

I asked about the caliper clip contact with the rotor and the tech says "Yeah, it's designed to make contact. When you hear a whooshing noise, your pad is getting down there. When you hear a high pitched "whrrrrrr" you really better replace the pad right away, the rotors are scoring."

So, I'll need new rear pads at about 6000 miles, but rotors should be OK.

He gave me the party line on using anything other than Infiniti pads. Didn't charge anything for the half hour we spent talking and checking them out for me. But I didn't get the feeling they were going to offer a free replacement when the rears were due.

Guy said the standard replacement time he was seeing on the Gs for front and rear pads/rotors was 18,000-20,000 miles--which concurs with what someone else on the board mentioned Infiniti tech told them recently.



Dreams garnet fire/graphite leather 6MT 2003.5 premium/aero/winter

 

From reading these posts and others similar, I would say its safe to say to replace your brakes every 15,000 miles, which depending on the driver equals once a year.

I think the average car gets atleast 30,000 miles out of brakes, but I guess they don't stop as fast as the G35 either. I guess its up to debate weather is a design flaw or performance issue.

Ivory Pearl - 6MT - Sedan

 

15,000 is not much for a set of brake pads. For comparison, I got about 85,000 on the original brake pads on my old '96 Maxima. I did not drive that car very hard at all, but they weren't all highway miles, either.

 

>Front brakes were fine, very little wear on pads. No warping on rotors. Back pads had a lot of wear and he said I'd get another 1,000 to 2,000 miles.

dreamsenoi,
Interesting that your back pads are showing far more wear than the fronts. Perhaps from VDC kicking in and activating the rear brakes during that hard driving?

 

You raise an interesting point, although the VDC only kicked in a couple of times for a split second during the hard driving, so don't know if that would be enough for the greater wear. I will ask around about that. Rears are smaller than fronts, though most of the braking wear and tear when threshold braking is on the front. Just more to ponder... But one thing I decided is to definitely take extra sets of rear pads to the track whenever I go.

Dreams garnet fire/graphite leather 6MT 2003.5 premium/aero/winter