What's the typical lifespan of the original brake pads? 30K, or?
 

Just tryin' to plan ahead - my car has 20,700 on the clock with the original pads and NO sign of braking degradation at all.....thoughts?

40.000KM, road

Almost an impossible question to answer. There are so many variables, the first of which is driving habits.

I know some who track their cars and can go through brake pads in only a couple of track events.

Just keep watching the thickness of the outer pad over a period of time. You can usually see the front pad thickness, front and back, through the alloy wheels w/o taking wheels off or removing anything. Outer and inner pads can and do wear slightly differently, but the outer ones will still give you a good estimate.

BTW, I replaced fronts and rears on my DB11 V12 at 30,000 miles.

I bought my Rapide with 9K miles on it. I am just over 50K and have a ton of brake pad left. I don't think the pads were new when I bought the car. Could be my driving style? Half of my driving is local.

Don't just rely on a visual of the outer pads. The interior pads can and often do wear differently. In any case the wear pad sensor should signal if a problem is eminent. Of course it's always better to do some preventive maintenance.

Many Thanks all! Appreciate you guys.

Here is a visual on pad wear.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.6sp...78b44391f3.jpg




These are the left front, outer and inner pads that came off my DB11 @ 30,000 miles and my car has never been tracked, just street driven. The worn pad thicknesses are:
Outer - 3.3MM
Inner - 3.0MM

The difference in outer to inner - 0.011"

Whether an inner pad wears at a faster rate than the outer pad can vary based on a few different reasons, one of which, again, is driving style. Cars that are seriously tracked that go through a set of pads in very short order on the track, most of the track wear is occurring in turns where the vehicle mass is shifting during braking which can cause more uneven wear (inner to outer, and left side to right side) than a car that is driven on the street where the majority of the braking occurs in a straight line.

New pads are usually in the range of 12mm to 14mm depending on the brand. For all the brake jobs I've done on cars in the last 35 years, on my own cars, I don't wear down a pad to the point of triggering the sensor; instead, I watch the outer pad and change about in the range where I see the outer pad at about 3mm. If you're not into metric, that's about 1/8th of an inch.

I could had gotten more mileage from these pads, maybe another 5K miles or less, but not worth it to me, especially since a brake job on my own cars cost practically nothing compared to shop or dealer prices.

Many Thanks B-Wings!