How Much Is It To Fix Brake Pads

The wretched screech of your car's brakes is a special kind of public embarrassment. It's a piercingly loud, aurally offensive reminder at every stop sign or slowdown that one of your car's crucial components is in desperate need of attention. Chances are, you need a new set of brake pads. How much will a set set you back? The short answer is that it depends. Do you drive a Ford or a Ferrari?

This is an issue you can't ignore, because brake pads are a key to stopping safely. Every time your foot hits the brake pedal, the force from your leg is translated through a brake master cylinder, a booster, hydraulic fluid, and brake lines to do one thing: squeeze brake pads against brake discs (also called brake rotors) to slow you down. Think about catching a Frisbee. Your fingers serve the same purpose as brake calipers and the pads inside them: clamping down on the rapidly spinning disc to slow and ultimately stop its rotation. You might even notice that your fingertips get warm for a split second when you catch that Frisbee. Because stopping a brake rotor is actually stopping a few thousand pounds of automobile attached to it, rather than just halting the spin of a standard six-ounce Frisbee, the brake disc is a lot more resistant to surrendering all that energy. Slowing a car down takes a lot of clamping force.

Why Brake Pads Get Hot

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This is where brake pads come in. Your brakes convert your car's kinetic energy (forward motion) to thermal energy (heat) using friction, and the amount of friction generated by squeezing a brake disc hard enough to slow down a two-ton (or more) vehicle throws off a lot of heat. Each brake caliper contains two pads mounted with their friction-side material embracing the rotor—like your thumb and fingers waiting to catch that Frisbee. The friction material bonded to the pads' metal backing plates is specially engineered to live in that heat-soaked environment stop after stop. The photo above of a race car braking hard for a corner with its rotors glowing shows how hot brakes can get (though they don't usually get that hot during street driving).

What Brake Pads Are Made Of

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Brake-pad design is an exercise in materials science. The friction material of a brake pad needs to perform many functions. It must resist fade (losing braking power) under heavy braking; it must perform predictably over a wide range of temperatures and after exposure to water; it must minimize wear on the rotor; and it must have a reasonable life for its intended use. Based on their material composition, brake pads typically fall into one of three categories: semi-metallic, organic, and ceramic. Most passenger cars come from the factory with metallic or semi-metallic brake pads. Each material has its strengths and weaknesses.

Organic pads, which used to be made with asbestos, have a lower cost and produce less brake dust, though the softer compound can mean squishy pedal feel and less resistance to overheating and the fade that comes with it. Good for the commuter car, bad for the weekend canyon bomber. Metallic pads are durable and harder, providing a firmer brake pedal than more easily compressible alternatives. However, they can't deliver full braking potential until they've had a chance to warm up, and the harder pad means more brake dust on your wheels and a shorter service life for your brake discs. Metallic pads can also squeal.

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Lastly, ceramic brake pads are the priciest of the bunch but offer some offsetting benefits. Ceramics can handle higher temperatures than metallic pads. They produce light-colored dust, rather than stubborn black brake dust, and they last longer than organic or metallic pads without wearing down the rotor as quickly. They're something of a waste on a car that won't be braking hard enough to take advantage of the higher operating temperatures that they can handle, but in certain applications, such as on a sports car that you drive aggressively on mountain roads, a set of ceramic pads makes sense.

Where to Buy Brake Pads

Mainstream passenger-car and SUV brakes prioritize longevity, smooth and quiet operation, and cost, while performance-vehicle brakes focus on minimizing brake fade during brutally hard use while producing as much stopping power as possible. That's why we're comfortable recommending that you stick with the same pads the maker of your vehicle installs at the factory. They were carefully engineered to meet that vehicle's braking requirements. But if factory pads seem too expensive, do your homework online or at the auto-parts store and you'll likely be able to find several other good-quality pads for your vehicle—some at reduced prices compared with the factory components.

Your first stop for checking brake-pad replacement cost should be your local dealer.

If you're planning on replacing your own brake pads, know that there's more to doing the job than just swapping in new hardware. You may need the brake rotors turned (trued and smoothed) or replaced entirely. You'll also likely need to bleed the brakes. But we're not here to take you through an entire brake job, rather to give you a grounding on pads and their cost.

Brake-Pad Cost

So how much do brake pads cost? The long answer is that it depends on your vehicle. They can set you back a lot or a little. To give you a feel for that range, we checked pad prices at our local Chevy dealer and found that a set of factory brake pads for a family-friendly Chevy Equinox SUV costs $262, and that doesn't count installation. Not cheap, but it's nothing compared with the cost of a set of brake pads that are up to the task of stopping a 650-hp Corvette Z06 with the Z07 package—which comes with exotic carbon-ceramic brake rotors. Those pads will put a smoking $2128 hole in your wallet! Obviously, not all brake pads are created the same.

Do It Yourself

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