1993 E36 Front Brake Pads

[Saturn822]

I have a 1993 E36 M50 325i 78,000 miles on it. I did a brake job at 65,000 miles. I replaced rotors, pads and rebuilt calipers. I used Pagid pads brake pads. Now the front pads need to be replaced again. I only got about 13,000 miles on the front pads. This seems a little low to me. I'm used to getting about 35,000 miles on front pads. Does this seem OK?

[Jeron]

That is way too few miles, 25-35k is normal.

Are all 4 front pads worn the same amount and is the wear even across the pads?

That much wear should have effected you gas mileage. Most likely it is a stuck caliper. First thing to check is the piston dust boots. Are you sure you reassembled the calipers properly when you rebuilt them?

[Saturn822]

The wear is even across all four front pads. I bought the calipers already rebuilt from Autozone. I know it seems strange to me and gas mileage was OK. It didn't feel like the brakes were dragging while driving the car. I'm having the rotors machined and I will give it another try. I'll check calipers before I install the new pads.

[Jeron]

Machining the rotors is a waste. If they are causing problems buy new ones. If you have no problems with them and they are above spec then keep them as is.

[Saturn822]

I had another though. I put new Bilstein struts on the front end but never aligned the front end because the car didn't pull left or right and tires were wearing OK. Could this have something to do with rapid brake pad wear?

[Jeron]

Bad alignment should not effect brake pad wear, and certainly not to this extent.

[Troy911]

Pagid makes a bunch of differant types of pads, maybe you didnt buy the street pads, witch would be a dark blue, there racing pads are orange , yellow and some other colors.

[bsaffin]

You didn't say what kind of rotors you're using. I've heard anecdotally that cross-drilled or slotted rotors will eat through pads in less than 1/2 the mileage you'd normally expect.