Good points Britcars. YMMV
I found that to be true with service advisors / mechanics as well. It's good to remember that service advisors are paid on commission.
I went in for scheduled maintenance at the dealership. Service advisor wanted me to change pads and rotors. I said next time. Three months later, I went to an outside Jag shop and to do the job. They said I didn't need service yet. I drove 8 months past when the dealership wanted me to change.

Confessions From the Dealership Service Department
Confessions From the Dealership Service Department -- Edmunds.com

 

Lots of truth to that 'confessions' story. It sorta glosses over the surface, though. There's much more to it...from different perspectives....not all of them bad.

Cheers
DD

 

I think I'm in this boat, I've had my car for almost 18 months with a little under 15,000 miles and my rotors seem to be warped, this seems a bit premature to me.

 

While I agree with all of the posts concerning driving style causing substantial differences in pad life, I think there may be something else at play here.
In general, although I don't burn the tires often, I will have floored the accelerator a few time on each trip I make. And I do abuse the brakes by most folks standards. I have put 36,000 HARD miles on my XFR and the original pads all show less than 50 % wear per the dealer inspection, and my look see to confirm.
Other than good luck, which I generally have little of, the only difference in my brake usage from what may be "normal" is that I almost never use the electric parking brake. MAYBE that has contributed to my low wear?

 

Usually the e-brake / parking brakes uses a separate pad system to hold the car and not your normal rear pads.

 

I don't think so for this car! Am I wrong?

 

With hard braking I understand, but I don't, and even if I did I would expect more than 15K. That's just ridiculous.

 

Easy to find out, just hold a flashlight down at your rear pads and have someone activate the brake. On the M each side has a separate pair of drum-like pads that hold against the inner hub of the rotor, which of course you can't see unless the rotor is off.

 

How/why do you avoid having the EPB engage?

 

Well, maybe I don't! I should have said I do not set it with the controls. I guess you are implying that it sets itself, huh? I never really thought about that.

I was pretty amazed that the pads have held up like they have. I already bought some replacement ceramics in anticipation of needing them, but they are just riding in the trunk now. My plan was to re-use the rotors once, assuming they measured OK.

I do like the stopping response of the original pads, though. I am wondering if I really want the ceramics on there , after all.

 

I'm going to call my dealership today to see what they say, the booklet says they're not covered under normal wear, but I would hardly call ~15,000 miles normal wear for the rotors to be shot. And if they would say no I sure as hell am not going to have them put the same garbage that's on there now. With that said, does anyone have any recommendations for replacement rotors?

 

My dealership said it will be covered, so, that's a relief.

 

I ASSUME they will also look for the root cause of the failure, since it would sure seem there is something peculiar to your car.

 

One would hope, if the rotors are bad this soon something else has to be up.

 

Meaning, of course, that you should ask for an explanation when you take it in and when you pick it up, instead of just basking in the happiness of them paying for it!

 

My late 2 cents worth.

Squeal can be caused by a minute separation of the pad material from
the pad plate. The cause is often temperature abuse.

Then there is driving style.

I once saw someone directly in front hit the brakes 17 times in stop and
go city traffic before I had to touch the brake pedal for the first time.
And I was still directly behind him. So what did he gain?

That's not an isolated incident. It's just the way people drive around
here.

The guy using the brakes 17 times more will probably use up more pad,
especially as he is going to have to stand on them harder because he
is riding the bumper of the car ahead of him.

Now 17 times was exceptional, but 5 or 6 applications to 1 would be
pretty normal around here.

 

I don't know where you live but if I was opening up a buisness here in Raleigh, it would be a brake shop.

 

They're replacing my front rotors. I haven't really noticed, but do XFs seem to go through brakes/rotors abnormally?

 

Is there some significant difference between XF and S-type brakes? Accelerated wear as being described here was never seen on the latter car.

 

So, they replaced the rotors(from) which I think would have cost me about $400, and I asked the guy that ran the desk what the issue was: his reply was "your rotors were warped," and I'm thinking, yeah I know that's why I brought it in, I asked if the calipers were sticking or something and he just repeated that the rotors had warped. I really think that they just think the average person coming in is a complete idiot when it comes to cars.