S40 rear brake life?

[Homebrewer]

My dealer says the rear pads are thinner so they wear out faster.

[potroast]

My 850 has a working cup holder YAY Do I get a gold star?

Lol, anyway, on a more serious note... The volvo brakes are damn good, but wear quickly. Spend $40 per axel, and grab a set of "Performance Friction" pads. They last a little longer, but they have lifetime warranty! Although you WILL have to replace them, you'll get free replacements!

[Tsquared]

The volvo brakes are damn good, but wear quickly. Spend $40 per axel, and grab a set of "Performance Friction" pads. They last a little longer, but they have lifetime warranty! Although you WILL have to replace them, you'll get free replacements!

I have to disagree with your statement about Volvo brakes being good. The calipers are made out of poor quality metal and the rotors are easily warped due to the thin castings. The organic pads don't last and if you use anything other than OEM pads with the original rotors you will have a horrible squeal. I do agree that when they are freshly serviced they do a fair job at stopping the car.

To get more out of the braking system get a set of premium Brembo rotors and ceramic pads - use plenty of pad grease and you may have to experiment with cutting down anti-vibration shims to get rid of squeal. If you have a caliper that needs replacing consider upgrading both to higher quality aftermarket calipers (almost all aftermarket calipers are higher quality).

This is one area that spending the extra $$ to get advanced quality that will pay you back in the long run. Replaced front pads w/ OEM at less than 30K and then about 55 K I needed front and rear pads and new front rotors. Went with Brembo cross-drilled premium rotors and ceramic on front, OEM pads on rear. Squeal on front corrected with more grease. At 100K I need rear pads, OEM again and I have a horrible squeal. Cut shim kit for rear and front is about 1/2 worn. It also stops quicker with the aftermarket rotor/pad. I don't expect any brake issues for another 50K.

[ayuaxe]

These discussion threads would be amusing if it weren't such an obvious design flaw in the s40. NO, NO, NO--the fronts don't wear out faster than the rears. That's the way it's supposed to work, but the weirdo, mis-programmed electronic ABS system on the s40 directs more breaking power to the rears. The pads are not thinner--why a dealer would lie about something so obvious, I find it hard to understand, but mine does it all the time, too. The rear pads are remarkably small considering the size and performance level of the car and the fact that Volvo programmed the system to put most of the strain on them. You can get cheap aftermarket pads from NAPA that won't make any more noise than stock and they're pretty easy to change yourself, if you're somewhat handy with automotive stuff. I'm on a set now and it's impossible to tell the difference between them and the solid gold-priced dealer installed ones. The more serious problem, that's rearing its head for me after 45K miles, and 4 sets of rear pads to 2 sets of fronts, is the wear on the rotors. Volvo rotors are also reputed to be soft and it looks like that's the case. They'll probably have to be replaced on my next brake job as well. It is abysmal that a once-great, quality and safety conscious car maker can't upgrade the programming for a clearly defective brake system. Of course, this is Ford at work--they'd rather alienate their customers and pretend they're one of only three 10 ton gorillas (who all act the same and two of which are about to go into bankruptcy together--Chrysler's already been there, of course), while stealing customers' money through unjustified service costs they refuse to cover under warranty or FIX. Only real fix for those of us stuck with or who like other things about this fun little car, is to replace all the brake components, using larger discs and pads with higher durability compounds on the rear (red on the rear, green in front, if you can get them--ECB doesn't seem to make the red rear for S40, but another disc and caliper combo might be covered). Best of luck to all.

[shadetree]

as a long time volvo tech i can tell you that the s40/v40 is the only volvo that rear pad life is less than front life. so it is important to ck all brakes at reg intervals having said that the engineers i spoke to focus on stopping the car.with some concern for pad life note: for people who change their own pads their is a special tool and process to change them you cannot just compress the piston. machineing the rotors is not necessary and not rec as a factory repair not to say that some people do. with limited sucess. the rotor thickness must be measured and for some models their is a min thickness at pad replacement volvo makes a specification book for most models that lists specks for lots of items the binder is model dependant and is app 3" 5" handy to keep around have several from s/v40,850 s/v70 01v70 s80s and others check your local retailer.

What is the special tool and proccess to change the rear brake pads?. I did it the only way I new how by copressing the piston with a heavy duty C clamp. It was very hard to copress the piston but I managed to do it and every thing is working fine. Is there a potential to damage the piston by copressing it?.

Please share this special tool for compessing the piston in order to replace the brake pads (and where to purchase). I also attempted to change the rear pads by compressing the piston with a C-clamp but it would not budge. I didn't want to force it too much so know my mechanic just made another hundred bucks.

[unhappys60owner]

I purchased my S60 with 17k miles from an auction. The car was previously owned by Volvo Financial Services. The car had brake problems when I purchased it and I've had to replace the rotors already on three ocassions (if not four--can't recall). I'm about to exceed 50k which had me in warranty for these replacements. Now I'm really nervous because the problem is still present. Volvo always says the same thing, "driver usage on the brakes." I previously drove a Nissan through 125k miles and never replaced the rotors!

Can anyone provide me any insight to the problem....

[JimmieJohnson]

Hi,

My mechanic just told that rotors needs to be replaced
everytime the front brake pads needs replacing.
According to him, unlike the japanese cars wherein
you can change the front brake pads without changing
the rotors.

Is this all true? I have 36K on my 2002 S40.

Thanks.

[alfonzobonzo]

see your other post,

Ps, i wouldnt use volvo discs, they are as soft as sh1T