Repeated Brake Replacement

[Merilee]

I need to replace my brakes on my car for the third time in 3 years. I only have 45 000km on my car and have had to replace brakes 3 times!!!! What is going on? There must be a flaw in the design as this seems to be ridiculous. If I am going to have to change my brakes once a year without having put much milage on the car, I will get a different make of car. Something is amiss! Anyone else having this same problem?

[jkeaton]

Yes, everyone has the same problem. Do some searching on this forum. There are tons of threads complaining about the crappy brakes on the earlier models. Chrysler got around to fixing them in late 2012, IIRC.

Edit: You can avoid repeated replacements if you get quality aftermarket parts instead of using dealer parts.

Edited April 1, 2014 by jkeaton

[Journey_SeXT]

If you have the 17" or 19" tires you could always inquire about upgrading to the bigger brake package that they have now on the newer models. If you do a forum search our brake guru Frogbox has a tutorial on the brake upgrade. It will be expensive but should avoid the premature wear you are getting now.

[FROGBOX]

Been there....done that.

My first set of front brakes were replaced at the dealer under warranty at 20k due to pulsation in the brake pedal caused by warped rotors. The second set started doing the same thing around 40k. instead of replacing them with the same crappy parts, I decided to upgrade. I installed larger brake components that come on the newer Journeys. They are still OEM parts, but since they are larger, they are stronger and not likely to warp any time soon.

The rears were worn out at 40k. I replaced them with a set of power stop rotors & ceramic pads. My brakes should now last well over 100k. The easy solution to the problem is to install a quality set of aftermarket parts and they should last for years.

[stever]

The dealer replaced the front pads and rotors under warranty on my '09 Journey at 20k miles as well. I replaced the rear pads at about 35K miles with ceramic pads. About 60k miles on it now and all is still well. In the past I have owned Toyota's, Honda's, Subaru's and currently own a '92 Miata and a '03 AMG C32. Besides the relatively minor brake problem(to me) the Journey is one of the best cars I have ever owned.

[bramfrank]

Mine ticked over 45000 km yesterday - I have the original pads and disks and no pulsation - about 30% wear left on the pads all around. I do about 50/50 city/highway driving and while I'm not a leadfoot, I don't drive like a grandmother either. My kids certainly don't take it easy on the vehicle.

It sounds to me like wear is directly tied to how hard you work the vehicle and the conditions you use them in - Gritty, dirty environments likely contribute to increased break wear (clean those calipers and sliders); Frequent, hard stops likewise. If you carry heavy loads . . and so on.

Edit: It occurs to me to mention that back when the kids were young and before I got divorced my ex would get between 4K and 8K out of a set of brakes on the various vans she had (We used to buy GM vehicles) - she complained bitterly to the dealer (and to me) about how crappy the brakes were in the sense that she was always having to change them.

Well, our process was that she would always get the new vehicle and I would get her old one (since all I ever did with a car on weekdays was to drive from a garage at home to a garage at my office) noting that rush hour driving is especially hard on vehicles.

Something very interesting would always happen when I took over the vehicle;

1. Brakes started lasting

2. Fuel economy was vastly improved

Now, when I was with her she wouldn't drive like a cowboy, but clearly she wasn't driving the same way with me than she did when she wasn't.

Edited April 20, 2014 by bramfrank