Brake life question

[avintegrator]

What's the normal life I should expect from the stock pads? I don't trust the dealer or the local Midas. I was looking thru some of the expenses for the business and everytime one of the guys took their truck to have the brakes looked at we had to replace the rotors and the pads and ............That's what we get for letting the guys handle getting their trucks serviced i guess.
Also , what a good way to judge when the brakes need to be replaced other than that loud screeching noise, If it gets to that point i'm generally screwed :)

[r33pwrd]

well squeal tabs usually work good and give you a pretty good warning before you go metal on metal...

its pretty easy to look at the pad with the wheel off and see how they look... I have had GM cars that get 80K on front brakes and one that get 10K on front brakes so its hard to guess on what they will get and there are not many high mile G8s out there yet!

[-Ray-]

Looking at the brake fluid reservoir helps. As the pads wear the fluid drops.
When the tires are rotated, a quick look lets you know how much pad is left.