2017~2025: Original CX-5 Brakes are lasting a LONG time…

[brownbearuva]

Went to the dealership for a tranny flush yesterday @52,000 miles. They did a complimentary video inspection, during which they told me that both sets of brakes had about 70-80% life left on them. This was a surprise, because I’ve owned this car since new, and have never replaced the brakes (again, in 52k miles of driving). I’d been thinking I’d have to replace the brakes any day now, so I texted the technician to double check, and he confirmed his statement. 70-80% life remaining.

What do y’all make of this? Extrapolating it out, that means my brakes have the potential to last well over 100k miles. I’ve always thought brakes were good for 35k, maybe 45k miles max. Is it unheard of for brakes to last this long? I will say, I tend to drive in such a way that I feather my brakes moreso than slamming them, but I can’t imagine it makes that stark of a difference.

 

[RL911]

Depends on your driving habits. More city driving, faster brake wear. My son’s 18 has 33k miles and when I rotated the tires for him last week, I could see the rears were wearing down pretty good and will need to be changed soon. Fronts still had plenty of life.

 

[HyFlyer]

+1 habits/driving style and environment

Rear pads usually wear out before fronts on these cars. We routinely get 100,000 miles + from a set (and the fronts could go longer but I just change all four).

Just changed pads / rotors on my daughter's Mazda3 a couple months ago at 70ish thousand miles.

 

[Jmaz]

+1 habits/driving style and environment

Rear pads usually wear out before fronts on these cars. We routinely get 100,000 miles + from a set (and the fronts could go longer but I just change all four).

Just changed pads / rotors on my daughter's Mazda3 a couple months ago at 70ish thousand miles.

You must do a lot of highway driving to get that kind of mileage on brake pads. I didn't measure remaining pad left on factory fronts when changing them but the replacement Raybestos Element 3 EHT hybrid pads are wearing at ~ 7000 mi/mm with my 90% around town driving I do (not stop and go city but still lots of stop signs and lights). The new pads were/are 10mm friction material thickness. The metal backing plates are 6 mm thick. The rear pads are 7.5 mm thickness new. So, brake bias aside, the rear pads have less material and are significantly smaller also, therefore expected to need changing sooner than fronts. Just my experience to date.

 

[Mazdiod2]

I think it's perfectly normal if you don't use the brakes too much. I've had cars with way over 100k miles and original brakes.
After all the brakes don't wear out from miles you drive down the highway, only when you apply the brakes. So it' s a bit 'abnormal' to gauge the brake wear by the number of miles, unlike oil, tires, etc.

 

[brownbearuva]

Thanks for the insights here. That does make sense, it’s not the amount of miles driven, but the amount of braking you have to do. Grateful for the sanity check!

 

[ADS-B]

Almost 160.000 miles on mine with the original brake pads and I am just starting to think about replacing them.

 

[gtbigup]

Damn mine is only 1 month old and I was going to ask if anyone has opted to change their pads for some with more bite. These don't feel quite good to me. Even my wife's Armada has more bite than this CX. Maybe I'll get used to. It's has 1400 miles on it now.

 

[N7turbo]

I changed mine at 3,000 miles to Akebono ProACT to keep my new wheels clean and reduce corrosive brake dust buildup in the calipers and surrounding areas. But they won't get you "more bite". I think you'll get used to it. Cars with more immediate brake bite are very jarring to me as it's hard to modulate.

 

[Jmaz]

Damn mine is only 1 month old and I was going to ask if anyone has opted to change their pads for some with more bite. These don't feel quite good to me. Even my wife's Armada has more bite than this CX. Maybe I'll get used to. It's has 1400 miles on it now.

I changed out the factory rear pads at about 35,000 miles and replaced with the same Mazda parts. Was not happy with the price of them and had to buy the hardware kit separately also. I figured they could have gone another 8-10K. At 44,000 I got tired of the lack of bite of the original front brakes and put on (and they are mentioned along with other members experiences on this board should you do a search) Raybestos Element 3 Hybrid pads (EHT3). These are the hybrid ceramic/semi- metallic pads , not the Element 3 which are ceramic. The EHT3 have friction coefficients of GG which has more bite than the factory FF which is common in brake pads. In addition to more bite they have smooth modulation and are rotor friendly causing very little wear.

Liking the Raybestos pads, at 60,000 I replaced the rear pads again but this time with the same Raybestos pads. They are rated at GH and really hooked up nice compared to the Mazda pads.
Also, the Raybestos are a lot cheaper than the Mazda pads, ballpark of ~$28 to $35 depending whether front or rear and where purchased AND they include the metal pad holders that Mazda sells separately. I've purchased them from Rockauto and Amazon.

Another note. While they are a nice step up from OEM pads they still don't have the full bite I 've experienced in the past with good semi-metallics and like full ceramics require a bit of warm-up before the bite improves. But you don't have to stand on the brake pedal either and I ain't goin' back to full ceramics after never being happy with them.

Maybe some of the other members here could add their thoughts and experiences.

 

[gtbigup]

I changed out the factory rear pads at about 35,000 miles and replaced with the same Mazda parts. Was not happy with the price of them and had to buy the hardware kit separately also. I figured they could have gone another 8-10K. At 44,000 I got tired of the lack of bite of the original front brakes and put on (and they are mentioned along with other members experiences on this board should you do a search) Raybestos Element 3 Hybrid pads (EHT3). These are the hybrid ceramic/semi- metallic pads , not the Element 3 which are ceramic. The EHT3 have friction coefficients of GG which has more bite than the factory FF which is common in brake pads. In addition to more bite they have smooth modulation and are rotor friendly causing very little wear.

Liking the Raybestos pads, at 60,000 I replaced the rear pads again but this time with the same Raybestos pads. They are rated at GH and really hooked up nice compared to the Mazda pads.
Also, the Raybestos are a lot cheaper than the Mazda pads, ballpark of ~$28 to $35 depending whether front or rear and where purchased AND they include the metal pad holders that Mazda sells separately. I've purchased them from Rockauto and Amazon.

Another note. While they are a nice step up from OEM pads they still don't have the full bite I 've experienced in the past with good semi-metallics and like full ceramics require a bit of warm-up before the bite improves. But you don't have to stand on the brake pedal either and I ain't goin' back to full ceramics after never being happy with them.

Maybe some of the other members here could add their thoughts and experiences.

Thank you!! I rekon I'll do the replacement myself. Cant be that much different from, Civics, Titans, or GMC Sierra. All of which I've replaced pads

 

[N7turbo]

Another note. While they are a nice step up from OEM pads they still don't have the full bite I 've experienced in the past with good semi-metallics and like full ceramics require a bit of warm-up before the bite improves. But you don't have to stand on the brake pedal either and I ain't goin' back to full ceramics after never being happy with them.

I wonder which ceramics you've tried? I only have experience with the ProACT, which I would describe as having an almost-OEM feel, with maybe slightly less initial bite. It's close and I am going by memory. It's easily worth it to me, though. Interestingly when putting them side by side, they were an exact match as they make the pads for Mazda.

Note for the spectators: this is all about perceived feel and braking distance is no different between pads.

 

[Jmaz]

I wonder which ceramics you've tried? I only have experience with the ProACT, which I would describe as having an almost-OEM feel, with maybe slightly less initial bite. It's close and I am going by memory. It's easily worth it to me, though. Interestingly when putting them side by side, they were an exact match as they make the pads for Mazda.

Note for the spectators: this is all about perceived feel and braking distance is no different between pads.

For full ceramics this goes across 2 vehicles from 2003 until 2020 when the EHT3 pads replaced the 2014 front OEM pads. From memory only 4 brands: Duralast gold (AZ), Bosch just briefly, Akebono Proact which were an expensive and disappointing --- my experience does not bear out how great they are as they are touted so much as being so, and Mazda OEM. I got 7 years out of the first pair and varied time on the others and over 6 years on the Mazda pads, so that's over 13 years there alone.
Your right about the Proact lacking initial bite. In cold weather I had to really push hard on the brake pedal. The factory pads on my CX-5 were made by Akebono. Had "AK" stamped right on them. BUT, the Akebono semi -metallic pads (OEM Toyota) on a Celica I had were damn good but they were not ceramic. Wish I had that stopping power on the CX-5.

 

[Jmaz]

Thank you!! I rekon I'll do the replacement myself. Cant be that much different from, Civics, Titans, or GMC Sierra. All of which I've replaced pads

Just be aware of the procedure (maintenance mode?) for retracting the rear caliper pistons on the electric parking brake. Don't want to damage them by using a C clamp or extend the piston with the caliper removed. I personally have no experience with them as my 2014 has manual parking brake but I've read about it here and there is good info on this forum if you search or ask questions.

 

[N7turbo]

Definitely put the parking brake into maintenance mode as the first thing you do. And don't forget to replicate the procedure when you are 100% done—not in the middle of the process while your brakes are still off the car!

Pick up an $8 caliper piston compressor from Harbor Freight and a pair of Craftsman caliper hangers from Lowe's (any will do but that's what I had available locally).

 

[Jmaz]

Definitely put the parking brake into maintenance mode as the first thing you do. And don't forget to replicate the procedure when you are 100% done—not in the middle of the process while your brakes are still off the car!

Pick up an $8 caliper piston compressor from Harbor Freight and a pair of Craftsman caliper hangers from Lowe's (any will do but that's what I had available locally).

I assume the caliper piston compressor you mention is for doing the front calipers as the rear caliper pistons are electrically retracted (maintenance mode) and a compressor will cause damage possibly requiring new calipers.

 

[gtbigup]

Thanks for the info and tips guys. While not urgent, since my car is new, it's definitely something I'll be addressing soon.

 

[N7turbo]

I assume the caliper piston compressor you mention is for doing the front calipers as the rear caliper pistons are electrically retracted (maintenance mode) and a compressor will cause damage possibly requiring new calipers.

You still need to push them in.

 

[Jmaz]

You still need to push them in.

OK. As I mentioned above, I have no experience with the EPB so then I misunderstood. But the piston just gets pushed in then and not even rotated like the manual brake caliper?

 

[N7turbo]

OK. As I mentioned above, I have no experience with the EPB so then I misunderstood. But the piston just gets pushed in then and not even rotated like the manual brake caliper?

Correct. It just gets pushed straight in, just like the fronts, per the discussions I read.