Subaru rear brakes.

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JTK

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I just had to do rear brakes on my 2016 Subaru Forester at 38600 miles and 2yrs of ownership. They felt fine and performed well, but after giving the car a good once over before I take it in for it's yearly mandatory state inspection, I found the rear pads worn to the bottom of their grooves already. The 2012 and 2014 Subaru vehicles I owned prior were both close to needing rears at this mileage, but one was turned in (lease) and the other was traded in for the 2016 Forester at about this mileage. Maybe it's a Subaru thing, the brake bias, or maybe just my luck and particular driving, but I've never owned a newer vehicle that needed brakes this soon..Ever.

I could have re-used the rear rotors, but new painted Advance Auto platinums were only $71.32 all in, but disturbingly, the dinky little pads were expensive at $51.10 for "golds" that didn't even include hardware. Ones with hardware were $70-80! Nice thing about the car being so new is everything comes off and apart so nice. Oh well, $122 is a lot better than the $350 a shop would charge.
 
It'll be cheaper next time. I've read that with stability control and all the doodads that rear brakes carry their weight now moreso than before.

I'd be happy to get such short mileage, means the parts are moving and not jamming in one spot.

Next set of pads will be cheaper with more aftermarket support.
 
Yeah, the caliper pins were still nicely greased and moving like new and the pads slid right out of the holders. I still took forever cleaning up the clips, shims, boots, etc. and re-lubed with Sil-Glyde. The rotors pulled right off after taking the caliper retainers off. That's a first for me with hat-in-rotor rear parking brake rears.
 
That's quite surprising to me. I replaced the rear pads on my '13 Outback at just over 80k miles. When I took my Outback in for a state safety inspection, the report showed they measured the rear pads at 2 mm, so I ordered replacement pads. When I got them off, I found them to be almost 4 mm, so I could have safely went to 90k miles on my rear pads. I really should have double checked them after the state inspection, because I had measured the pad thickness just a few thousand miles earlier, and found them to be between 4 and 5 mm. Lesson learned. Correction: Lesson re-learned. Always double check shop work.

Based upon discussions at an Outback forum, my experience is very typical, with very few exceptions that report having to replace rear pads before 70k - 90k miles.

As far as cost, I ordered Subaru OEM pads on Amazon Prime for $61. That included a full hardware kit. Subaru OEM pads, at least for the Outback, are Akebono, and a pretty good quality pad. I've never dealt with noise, dust, or any other issue. And as explained above, wear is fantastic.

I was planning on replacing rotors at the same time, but they had almost no wear from the original spec, so I couldn't see any reason to do so. I just ran a sheet of 200 grit across them and called it good.
 
I was astonished that our '09 Forester needed rear pads at around 40K.
FWIU, Subaru has biased brake application to the rears, easily done with four channel ABS.
The advantage would be less dive on application.
In any event, I hadn't replaced OEM brakes on either end at less than 72K before we had this Subie.
 
madRiver- I thought about that. It would be to any Subaru owner's advantage to go in for an oil change or something and have them check your brakes just before 36K. Not sure how well the "free" brakes work out for folks under the 3/36 warranty.

BHopkins and fdcg27, it's my understanding the the rear rotors and pads are larger and more substantial on the Outback model. The Impreza and Forester share the same puny brakes. The only exception is the XV Crosstrek. Even though they're a "lifted" Impreza, they use the larger Outback brakes for the rear only from what I understand.
 
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REAR pads at 38k?
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My '11 Fusion was metal-on-metal in the rear (both sides) at 44k (owned since 19k), and I replaced the pads with Motorcraft and the rotors with AAP specials. Now the car has 111k and still on second set...
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FWIW, the Fusion is still on factory front pads and rotors, so no clue how there are such large discrepancies in lifetimes.
 
Subaru's always seem hard on the rears. You saw first hand how small the pads are.

I just had a Ford Transit 350 come in with metal on metal rear pads at 19k. All mechanicals were fine. Sometimes that's j7st how it goes.
 
Subaru’s do generally wear out the rear pads first. Just look at the size of the rear pads, factor in some rear brake bias and it is easy to see why.

I did a 13 Impreza a while back. The rears were done (2-3mm) at 80k but the fronts still had 4-5mm. I ended up doing the fronts at the next service visit. I used dealer pads and Akebono rotors for about the same price as you paid though, and the dealer pads come with a new shim kit and all new hardware.

One issue that I’ve been finding with Subaru brakes is that the Caliper slide pin bushing is fairly long and for some reason, can sometimes get a bit swollen. As a result the slide pin does not slide smoothly, and sometimes, won’t go back into the bracket once you remove the pin. Now, I always order a Caliper slide pin bushing kit from Carlson (about $6) for every Subaru brake job. The pins usually slide a lot better with new bushings.
 
Had to do the rear brakes on our Outback at 60k. 55k on my Legacy and they still look ok, but that gets mostly highway miles.
 
Thank you for posting this JTK. I prefer to do things like brakes prior to the annual state inspection, rather than fail inspection and scramble to get the job done. I have a '16 Forester also.
 
Critc, I'm intrigued as to how you got a pair of OEM replacement rotors and a pad set for close to $122. Best I could find for OEM replacement was $60-80/ea for the rotors and same for the pad set.

Here's a before and after..


 
No, I don't think that is the case.
The rear rotors on our '09 Forester are quite substantial.
Now, earlier Subarus, like the '99 Legacy AWD wagon we still have, which is an Outback without all the drag wear, have really tiny rotors at both ends, yet pad wear is still not excessive. Our '99 does have four channel ABS.
As I originally noted, EBD seems to be the cause of rapid rear pad wear on some later Subies.
 
The front wheel drive V-6 Chevys we have had in the past , I could figure brake pads / tires on the front at about 30,000 miles and the rears about twice that .

In the future , try to buy pads with lifetime warranty . If yours are not .

No experience with Subies .

Thankfully we do not live in the rust belt . Taking things apart is usually not too difficult .

I never have rotors turned . If they are worn too much , I replace them .

Our present FWD Chevy Sonic , the brakes look fine at 39,000 . Same with the Buick Lacrosse , but we purchased it used . But I doubt it has had any brake work .

The Chevy Silverado work truck I drive had a little over 100,000 miles when I changed pads & they probably had a good 40,000 - 50,000 miles to go . Changed the rear shoes about 6 months latter , same way / condition .

That really impressed me .

Best of luck , :)
Wyr
God bless
 
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
No, I don't think that is the case.
The rear rotors on our '09 Forester are quite substantial.
Now, earlier Subarus, like the '99 Legacy AWD wagon we still have, which is an Outback without all the drag wear, have really tiny rotors at both ends, yet pad wear is still not excessive. Our '99 does have four channel ABS.
As I originally noted, EBD seems to be the cause of rapid rear pad wear on some later Subies.


I'm not sure on the previous generations, but the online parts search I did shows the same p/n's for rear rotors and pads for a 2016 Forester and 2016 Impreza.
 
I had to replace rear pads on a friend's 2012 Forester at 40K, I put on Akebonos and at 65K, they're at the 55-65% worn stage. Newer cars do cycle the rear brakes more as part of the brake force distribution function of the ABS system but for some reason Subarus and Hondas eat through rear pads. The rear shoes on my car still have meat after 140K and I have EBD/brake assist.
 
I used to have a 2005 Impreza RS which was the baseline for that model year and I'm pretty sure it did not have EBD. It too needed rear brakes before the front. I remember reading somewhere that it depended on your braking style - in particular how hard you were on the pedal. The explanation was that Subies applied the rear brakes before the fronts to prevent nose dive. Subsequently if you braked light and early the rear brakes do most of the work while if you brake late and hard the fronts ended up doing more work. I drive pretty conservatively so my car wore out the rear brakes first.

Don't know if any of this makes any sense but I read it on the Internet so it MUST be true :)
 
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