So I drive a front wheel drive sedan and my rear breaks are at 2mm now. Is this incredibly dangerous to be driving with. I don’t drive very far or very fast so I’m not terrified about high speed breaking but nonetheless, is this dangerous?
Its not dangerous until all of a sudden it is. I rode the line on mine one time and they completely gave out while I was driving. Scary stuff.
The mechanic was mad at me when I took it to the shop. Don’t be like me.
It’s not so much dangerous as it is damaging. It will cost you a lot once you hit metal on metal. Fix them now. 2mm will not last long.
Brakes are cheap and pretty easy to replace (really) diy. Once your pads wear out, the backing plate will be pressed into the rotor, which will warp the rotor. Rotors are cheap too ($20-$50 each) and easy to replace, so it’s not a huge deal if you warp them, but it’s not something you should aspire to do.
Also, shops lie about brakepad life all the time, but maybe yours really are at 2mm, which is definitely worth replacing like 6 months ago. Also, your car does most of its braking with the front wheels anyway.
In conclusion,
It can be dangerous. Brakes dont have as much materia to absorb/shed heat so they heat up quickly. Hot brakes have reduced stopping power. Hot brakes warp. Warped brakes have reduced stopping power. Eventually, much sooner rather than later, youre likely to burn thru that last 2mm and begin metal-on-metal contact. Metal on metal is zero braking power. It doesn’t take much metal on metal to require new rotors along w new pads. It seems (local to me at any rate) that shops dont resurface rotors anymore regardless of having enough rotor to resurface safely.
Id replace them were they mine, or if you dont have the time/ability/tools/etc find a local shop/mechanic to do the needed replacements.
for how long? more than likely you won’t get yourself killed, but its not zero risk either, you should really get them done (or diy) soon, say in the next 2 weeks, maybe a month if you really don’t drive much at all. I know one person who drove all the way until his were grinding metal on metal, he lived just fine but it was risky and probably cost him more to fix because of it (though idk, replacing rotors seems to be really common these days, they’re almost treated as normal wear I feel like, but if they’re in good shape and you’re DIYing it you can reuse them)
As others have said, most of the braking power comes from the front. You can drive safely without rear brakes in 99% of situations. Of course, that 1% is when you need to make an emergency stop and you can’t really predict when that will happen.
That said, 2mm isn’t 0. If you haven’t been ignoring horrible grinding noises, those brakes are still doing something. You only really need to worry when the friction material is almost completely gone, and you’ll know because it sounds terrible. After that you run the risk of overheating and seizing the calipers, which can easily triple the repair cost.
