Chevrolet went through a decade of insults because of their horrible brake design on the 90s C1500 pickups. Bad pedal feel, wear out in 30k miles etc. Well, with the new Silverado they answered these critics with a brake system that will go over 100k miles!

That's great! except, it can be misleading to a customer or even a shop that is just looking at pad thickness. Because brake pads are constantly being overheated over and over again the worry is no longer wearing down but rather the pads themselves starting to come apart, crack and crumble.

Here are a few pics of a pickup that has 111,000 miles on it. Note the cracking and the separation of the pad from the backing plate.

(no, that one picture at the bottom isn't the brakes, it's the shock bushing on the same truck causing a little knock noise)