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Brakes
Track brake pad (or shoe) thickness at each corner, log brake jobs, and let MyGarage warn you before an axle's brakes wear out.
Find it on the vehicle detail page, under Maintenance → Brakes, next to Tires. It shows on the same vehicles as the Tires tab, so trailers, fifth wheels and travel trailers have no Brakes tab.
Brakes are tracked per corner: Front Left, Front Right, Rear Left and Rear Right. There is no spare. Brake data belongs to the corner, not to the tire on it, so a rotation or a set fit on the Tires tab never moves a brake figure.
Each axle is set up as disc or drum. A measurement records what the pads (or shoes) and the rotor (or drum) read on a given day. A brake job records work: new pads or shoes, and a rotor or drum replaced or resurfaced. From the measurements since the last pad job, MyGarage estimates how long each corner has left, and raises a reminder for the axle when one runs low.
Every brake figure is in millimetres, whatever your Units are set to. Pad gauges and the minimum stamped on a rotor read in mm.
The page groups the corners by axle, Front axle then Rear axle. Each card shows:
- a status chip (see Status Chips)
- the axle's limits, such as Disc · pads 10.0 mm new, 3.0 mm minimum
- a meter for each pad (or the shoe), measured against the new thickness, which changes colour in the due-soon band and again at the minimum
- the Rotor thickness or Drum diameter, with its limit when you have set one
- the Wear estimate and when it was Last measured
- Log measurement, Brake job and History
Clicking a card opens its history.
The Axle setup button at the top of the page opens a drawer with one block per axle:
- Disc or Drum
- New pad and Minimum pad (on a drum, New lining and Minimum lining): the thickness of fresh pads, and the thickness that counts as worn out. The new thickness is the meter's full scale; the minimum is what the chip and the reminder judge against.
- Rotor minimum thickness, stamped on the rotor as MIN TH, or Drum maximum diameter, cast into the drum as MAX DIA. Both are optional.
Until you save it, an axle is disc with a 10 mm new pad and a 3 mm minimum.
Switching an axle to drum in the drawer starts it from the drum defaults, a 5
mm new lining and a 1.5 mm minimum, and clears the rotor limit. The new
thickness has to be more than the minimum.
Changing an axle from disc to drum, or back, keeps its old measurements and jobs in the history, but they stop counting: the corners on that axle show Not measured until you measure them, or log a pad job, as the new type. Editing one of those old measurements shows its figures as from before the axle setup changed.
Log measurements opens one drawer for all four corners, because the wheels usually come off together. Log measurement on a card opens the same drawer.
- Enter the Date, which defaults to today and can't be in the future, and the Odometer, labelled with the vehicle's odometer unit, such as Odometer (mi). As in the tire dialogs, MyGarage offers the vehicle's nearest reading beneath it, and Use fills it in.
- Fill in each corner you measured:
- a disc corner takes Inner pad, Outer pad and Rotor (its thickness)
- a drum corner takes Shoe lining and Drum diameter
- Leave a corner blank to skip it. At least one figure is needed.
The date and odometer apply to every corner in the entry, and each corner gets its own measurement in its history.
One figure is enough. A look through the wheel often shows only the outer pad, so log that on its own. The inner pad's last figure is carried forward, and the card says when it was taken (Inner pad: last measured and a date), so a quick outer check can't hide an inner pad that is already low.
The odometer is there for the wear estimate only. Unlike a tire entry, a brake entry adds nothing to the vehicle's odometer or hour meter history.
After a rotation or a set fit, the Tires tab offers Wheels off? Good time to measure the brake pads. with a Log brake measurements button that opens this drawer.
On a vehicle set to track engine hours and not distance (see Engine Hours Tracking), every brake drawer asks for Engine Hours in place of the odometer, and the wear estimate is the hours left. A vehicle that tracks both gets both fields, and its estimate runs on the odometer.
Brake job records work on one to four corners. From a card it opens with that axle's two corners picked; from the top of the page, with none. Front axle, Rear axle and All four pick the corners in one tap.
- Date and Odometer (or Engine Hours), as for a measurement
- Pads replaced (Shoes replaced on a drum axle, Pads or shoes replaced when the job covers both kinds or no corner is picked yet), on by default
- the new thickness for each axle in the job, such as New front pad thickness (New front shoe lining on a drum axle). It starts filled in with the axle's new thickness from Axle setup. Correct it if your gauge says otherwise, or clear it if you didn't measure.
- Rotors (or Drums, or Rotors or drums): Left as is, Replaced or Resurfaced
- Notes
A job has to replace the pads or shoes, or do the rotors or drums.
A pad job starts the corner's wear estimate over. Its new thickness is saved as the first measurement of the new pads, marked New parts in the history. With that figure cleared, the card says New pads, measure them to start the estimate (New shoes, ... on a drum axle), and the chip reads OK until you do.
A measurement logged on the same day as a pad job, other than the job's own new-thickness figure, counts as the old pads: what came off. So you can measure the worn pads on the day, before or after logging the job, and they land in the right place. Rotors and drums work the same way: a figure logged on the day of a rotor or drum job is the old one, and the card's figure stays blank until a later check.
A job on several corners is saved once per corner, so each corner's history has its own copy to edit or delete. Deleting it also deletes the new-thickness figure saved with it. Editing a job's date or odometer moves that figure with it, and turning Pads replaced off deletes it.
A brake job records the work, not its cost. Put the cost on a service visit.
Click a card, or History, to open the corner's measurements and brake jobs, newest first. Within one day the new pads come first, then the job, then the old pads measured on the way off. Each row has Edit and Delete.
Edit on a measurement changes its date, odometer (or hour meter), figures and notes. A measurement saved with a brake job takes figure and note changes only; its date and odometer belong to the job, so change them there. The corner can't be changed: delete the entry and log it again on the right corner.
Edit on a brake job changes its date, odometer, whether the pads were replaced, what was done to the rotors or drums, and its notes. It can't change the job's corners or its new-thickness figure: fix the figure by editing the New parts measurement. Turning Pads replaced off and back on doesn't bring a deleted figure back.
Each pad is worked out on its own: the inner and outer pad on a disc corner, the shoe on a drum one. Only measurements since the corner's last pad job count.
A pad needs two measurements that each carry an odometer, the later one at a higher odometer and showing less pad. MyGarage takes the pad's oldest measurement with an odometer since the pad job, and its latest, the longest baseline there is. Pad wear between two checks is often less than a gauge can read, so the newest two alone would mostly measure noise.
From those two it works out the distance left before the pad reaches the axle's minimum, and a rough date, at the pace you drove between them. The distance left counts from the newest measurement with an odometer, so a later check of the other pad takes off what you drove since. When the newest measurement has no odometer, the card shows a date and no distance; two checks on the same day give a distance and no date. The card shows whichever comes first across the corner's pads: the least distance left and the earliest date. The two can come from different pads, since each pad wears at its own pace.
Until it can estimate, Wear estimate says what is missing:
- Needs a second measurement - only one since the pads went on
- Add an odometer reading to the latest measurement, or to the measurement on a named date
- Needs an earlier measurement with an odometer reading
- Needs a measurement at a later odometer - both checks are at the same odometer
- No wear measured yet - the pad reads as thick as it did, or the thinnest pad has been measured only once
- New pads, measure them to start the estimate (New shoes, ... on a drum axle) - a pad job with nothing measured since
- Not measured yet - no pad measured yet, and no pad job
The estimate follows the thinnest pad. When that pad has no estimate of its own, the card says why, and adds Other pad reaches the minimum around a date when the other pad has one: the corner can't outlast it.
On an hours vehicle all of this runs on the hour meter, and the estimate is the hours left.
- OK - measured above the due-soon band, with no pad expected at the minimum within 90 days, or new pads not measured yet
- 1 measurement - OK, but only one measurement since the pads went on, so no estimate yet
- Due soon - the thinnest pad is in the last quarter of its usable thickness, or a pad is expected to reach the minimum within 90 days
- Replace now - measured at or below the minimum
- Not measured - no pad (or shoe) measured yet for the axle's brake type, and no pad job either
The due-soon band is the minimum plus a quarter of the gap between the minimum and new: 4.75 mm with the disc defaults, 2.38 mm with the drum defaults.
Replace now comes from a measurement, never from the estimate alone. An estimate whose date has already passed reads Due soon until you measure.
The rotor or drum figure is the latest one since the rotor or drum was last replaced or resurfaced. The card flags it Past its limit when a rotor is at or below its minimum thickness, or a drum at or above its maximum diameter. That flag doesn't change the chip or raise a reminder.
Each axle has its own reminder, named for its brakes: Front brake pads low, Rear brake shoes low, and so on. It shows up alongside your other reminders, so the calendar and your notification channels pick it up with no extra setup. A reminder you wrote yourself under the same name is never adopted or completed for you.
When it's raised: as soon as any corner on the axle reads Due soon or Replace now.
Its due date comes from the measurements, not from the day it was raised:
- Replace now: the day that low figure was measured, so it is due straight away
- Due soon with a pad in the band: the projected wear date, or 90 days after the low figure was measured, whichever is sooner
- Due soon only because a pad is expected at the minimum within 90 days: that date
With two low corners, the earlier date wins. While it is open and a corner is still low, each brake entry moves the due date to match, and the title follows the axle setup (pads or shoes).
When it completes: on a new entry that leaves no corner on the axle low and at least one OK. That is a measurement that reads healthy, a pad job (new pads count as OK), a mistyped figure corrected upwards, or an Axle setup change to the minimum or new thickness that leaves the axle fine. A pad job on one side only completes it if the other side isn't low as well.
These never complete it:
- deleting the low measurement, or a brake job. Taking the low figure away isn't news that the pads are fine; log a new measurement instead
- clearing a figure in an edit
- an entry on the other axle, a rotor or drum figure or job on its own, a measurement dated before the last pad job, or a notes change
A closed reminder stays closed. Mark it done, dismiss it or delete it, and it stays that way while there is nothing new to say. It comes back when there is: a new pad measurement that still reads low, a corner it didn't cover going low, or a low corner reaching Replace now. Once a new entry shows the axle healthy, MyGarage forgets what the old reminder covered, so the next time the axle runs low you get a fresh one.
The daily check. A corner can turn Due soon with nothing entered, when
its projected date comes within 90 days. So once a day, at the start of the
8 AM reminder notification check (UTC, or the container's TZ) (see Scheduled Jobs),
MyGarage looks at every vehicle with brake measurements, archived ones aside,
and raises any reminder that time alone has made due, just before that
morning's notifications are sent. It only raises: it never completes a
reminder, leaves an open one as it is, and a closed one stays closed under the
rule above. It needs the background scheduler enabled.
Brake data is part of the full backup in Settings → Backup & Restore and of the vehicle's JSON export: the axle setup, jobs and measurements. A JSON import brings brakes into a vehicle only when it has no brake data yet, and raises any brake reminder the restored measurements call for. Brakes aren't in the CSV exports, the PDF reports, or the Analytics page.
- Measure all four when the wheels are off, in one entry. Uneven wear from side to side, or between the inner and outer pad, is the signal worth catching.
- Log the odometer (or the hour meter) with every measurement. The estimate needs it.
- On a pad job, measure the old pads that day and keep the new-thickness figure. The estimate then starts clean.
- Set the minimum you actually replace at. The
3mm default is a starting point; set it higher if you would rather replace early. - Put the rotor's MIN TH in Axle setup when you first see it. It is much easier to read with the wheel off.
- Tires - tread, mount history, rotation and sets
- Service Visits - where the cost of a brake job goes
- Engine Hours Tracking - hour-metered vehicles
- Units - the units the rest of MyGarage uses