How to check brake pads?

The most common car braking component that needs replacement is a set of brake pads. Read: How often to replace brake pads ? All modern cars use disc brakes where a hydraulically operated caliper pushes brake pads onto the rotor disc. There's a pad on each side of the disc. Then, the hydraulic force of the caliper effectively clamps them together. The force of the brake pad to the rotor disc may reduce your vehicle speed.

The system is designed for the brake pads to wear out quicker than the rotor discs as they're much cheaper to replace. On some brake pads, you might see a wear indicator made from metal placed on the edge of the pad.

A dashboard warning light is activated on some vehicles when the pads have worn down to a minimum level. This wear indicator can trigger other warnings. At the same time, other vehicles make a loud squealing noise to warn the driver that the brake pads need changing.

So, how to check brake pads on a car? Here are some ways to do a brake pad check on your car

1. Check brake pad thickness

The most common thing to do to check brake pad is from the brake pad thickness. So, how to check your brake pads? There are various methods that we can do to inspecting brake pads, such as:

A. Check brake pad thickness through the holes in the wheel

In many vehicles, you can see the brake pad through holes in the wheel. For this purpose, you may need a flashlight so that the brake pad inspection can be better.

Pay attention to the contact side between the brake pad and the disc rotor. One sign that the brake pad has begun to wear out is to look at the thickness of the pad. If the thickness is less than half, the brake pad is thin. However, if it's thinner than half, the brake pad is worn out.

Although it's easy, checking the brake pad wear with this method is less accurate in determining its thickness. Many parts of the car brakes often cover up the brake pad position to cause an error check.

B. Open the wheel and dismantle the caliper

The next method to check brake pad wear is to open the wheel and dismantle the brake caliper entirely. This method is more accurate to ensure the brake pad thickness.

We can see the brake pad thickness directly for the inner side pad or the outer side pad, so we can determine whether the brake pad needs to be replaced or not.

But unfortunately, this method requires knowledge and experience when dismantling and installing brake calipers and wheels. So that is quite difficult for common people who are not experienced or for non-technicians.

No matter what method you use to check the brake pad, the brake pad is considered worn out (thin brake pads) and needs to be replaced if the remaining thickness is less than 1/8 inch (3.2 mm).

Usually, the new brake pad thickness is about 1/2 inch (13 mm). If the brake pad thickness measurement is close to half the size of the new brake pad or remaining only 1/8 inch, we should replace the brake pad with a new one.

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2. Check the physical and surface of the brake pad

The next way to check the brake pad is to look at the physical and surface of the brake pad. The condition of the worn-out brake pad makes it easy for us to decide to replace the brake pad with a new one.

In other cases, the thick brake pad may need to be replaced if there are any symptoms like below :

The surface of the wheel attaches to blackish-brown powder.
The brake pad condition has cracks.
The surface condition of the brake pad has hardened like glass (fade).
Some pads are peeled off and gone.

If some of the above symptoms are seen during the brake pad inspection, you should replace the brake pad. The symptoms of the brake pad with the above conditions are usually damaged and make the brake system not optimal.