Anyone else have their rear brakes wear out before their front? In 40 years, I've never seen this before but it just happened to me. 2008 Rubicon Unlimited with 62k miles on factory brakes.

 

Just changed my rear pads on 2012 because mud 30K

 

Yeah, someone mentioned that they thought mud and sand from wheelin' might cause the rear to go before the front.

 

Normal operation for the JK. My rears were bad by 23k, so I changed them out to EBC Greenstuff's. I was baffled when the rears went out on mine before the fronts, too, since I'd never seen it happen that way before unless there was a problem. And I was previously a service advisor for 8 years, so it went against everything I knew about brakes...completely opposite in fact.

But it is indeed normal for the rears to wear out first. It was explained to me why they wear like that, but I don't remember the answer to that question at the moment. Maybe someone else can chime in and take that one for me.

 

The same thing happened on my 2001 VW Golf. It's not just a JK thing.

My theory is the brakes are biased to the rear more than they used to be. The ABS is better able to control rear wheel lockup than in years past, so more of the easy braking can be handled by the rear wheels. Having the rear wheels do more of the braking during city driving reduces nose dive, and increases directional stability. Of course, when you stomp on the brakes, the system directs more bias toward the front brakes, since they do most of the heavy braking.

Some people will say it's the traction control system applying the brakes on the rear wheels during wheel spin situations. It does do that, but how often do the rear wheels spin in city driving where the vast majority of driving takes place. Additionally, when the system controls wheel spin, the brakes don't absorb enough energy to cause a lot of wear.

(That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.)

 

55,000 miles. On my third set of rear brake pads. Fronts are still 50%. Napa just keeps giving me news ones when they wear out so OH WELL>10 min job to swap pads.
Waiting until the fronts wear out so I can just new rotors and brakes all around. Guessing my e-brake pads are shot by now.
The ESP might contribute to the rapid wear on the rears. Or just heavy rig and heavy foot.

 

Just did the rear pads on my wife's 4 door jk.
she just hit 30,000.

I had to do mine ( rear pads) around 50,000.

 

My rear pads wore first needing to be replaced before the front, using Hawk pads.

 

Wow your lucky to get 62k on your's,at 23k had to replace not just pads but rotors

 

Yep, rears went before the front.