Excessive Brake Pad and Caliper Wear?
 

1990 240DL Sedan, 146K miles

I know there is no single answer to this, but what have others found as a typical life expectancy for front brake pads? The car is driven about 7K miles per year from October through May. 90% of the driving is around town. Granted it is New England, but the car is not driven hard.

In looking back over the maintenance records from the original owner and me, the front brakes were done at:

Original owner:

35K
59K - only 24K miles
102K - better - 42K miles

Me:

125K - only 23K miles; also got new calipers (one was frozen)
146K – only 21K miles; also replacing calipers (one frozen, 1 with piston leak). The left brake pads still had some pad life left, but the right brake pads were close to metal on metal from the frozen caliper.

This just seems excessive. Any thoughts as to whether it is, and if so, what might be causing the excessive wear, or what I should be looking for as possible culprits?

The frozen caliper upsets the whole system and therefore the reduced pad life. 40k miles is great, but even that depends on the type of pad and type of driving you do. In any case the brake system should be working properly (no frozen calipers).

Thanks.

I going with Girling re-manufactured calipers by ReTech for the front end, and will replace the pads with genuine volvo pads.

Does it matter which rotors? I was considering Brembo, but possibly a genuine volvo rotor would be more compatible.

All parts will be from FCP Groton.

I would use Brembo. The last genuine Volvo brake rotors I got from Volvo were made in China.