I'm still on original front pads and rotors at 80K. My rears were changed around 60K. I live in the NE and I can see how VDC can wear your rears slightly quicker, but ever car I ever owned had rear brakes wear faster than the fronts. I always assumed it was because the rears are smaller and have to work a little harder.

 

Common thinking is the fronts do about 70% of the stopping work which is why fronts are larger than rear.

I have cars where I've gone through two or three sets of front brakes and the rears before the rears need any attention.

On the other hand, my MB suv needed both front and rear done at 22.5K so it could be worse...

 

The only time I see that VDC light is if the road is fully covered in snow and I'm accelerating quickly (stupid but fun?) and traction is poor. In those cases, I temporarily shut it off, but 99% of the time its on (great safety feature). Generally if you're not doing stupid things, your front brakes fade faster. I use my car for 75% city, 25% highway and I'm half way through this set of pads after 40k miles. How often are you burning through that rear set of pads anyways?

 

Some cars bias to the rear brakes under light braking. This keeps the car level when braking. This can be accomplished using electronic brake force distribution/controllers, which our cars have

I am not positive that this is how the system works on our cars though. I believe Nissan used it on their mininvan.

 

That would make sense and explain my pad wear. I hardly ever brake hard. I usually coast to lights, engine brake with timely down shifts and then hit the brakes when I get to about 25mph.

 

My previous EX35, the rears wore slightly before the fronts... I have only had my G37 coupe about 9 months now with not many miles, so can't tell yet on that one.

 

Depends on driving styles too. My EX35 needed new rear pads at only 18k miles... The fronts were still 50% life. After they changed them, bad vibrations at highway speeds, they had to redo them at their expense.

 

I have 40% pad left on the rear of my M37 and 70% left on the front pads. I get free parts through a buddy who owns a NAPA store so I'm just having my mechanic replace all 4 corners this week.

I found this thread using the search function because excessive rear pad wear makes little sense....until I read about the part about being an aggressive driver and the VDC. I leave traffic lights with enthusiasm and generally stab the brakes to stop so that's me.

FWIW I have 50K on the car now.

 

Absolutely true. The fronts on my 2010 X coupe are at 6-7mm and the rears were at 2-3mm when I recently replaced them at 41K miles. The OE fronts are showing moderate warpage at stops from 70 and 80 mph, and I'm pretty sure I need pads and rotors to eliminate the problem (despite the fact that I have plenty of pad left). For now, I plan to run the fronts down until I can no longer tolerate the steering wheel shake on hard stops.

 

The dealer (whether it's BS or not, in my experience it's true) told me that the All Wheel Drive infinities the rears wear out at the same or faster than the fronts, it's how the ATTESA AWD system works... They eat rear brakes, LOL! So far that is true on (2) AWD infinities I've had. The rear drive only models they last longer...

 

If you spend any time at the track, VDC will eat your rear pads.

Two days at Watkins Glen took a brand new set of rear pads to metal, but the fronts still had over 50% life left.