Can I reuse old brake pads on new rotors?
Reusing old brake pads on new rotors prevents the surfaces from mating properly, leading to uneven contact and lines or pitting forming on the new rotor. Because old pads wear into the shape of your previous discs, they cannot seat flat against a brand new rotor surface.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Waiting for the correct replacement brake pads to arrive before doing the job
- 2Replacing both rotors and brake pads at the same time
- 3Replacing only the rotors and allowing the old pads to eventually wear in and sit flat.
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I just replaced my front rotors but sadly the breakpads that I ordered didn’t fit so I kept the old ones that still had some life left in them.”source ↗
“My question is why are there lines on my rotors, is something stuck or perhaps dragging on the rotor?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 5Finding individual brake parts for an older car
- 5How do I know if brake pad hardware is installed correctly?
- 3Are new brake pads with a chipped corner safe to use?
- 4Why do brakes still fail after replacing calipers and bleeding?
- 2How to change rear brake pads with an electronic parking brake
- 6How to get a stuck brake rotor off the hub