I always thought 'whining' was a clue that the pads or the disks are on their last legs.

No, you're thinking of "squealing"!
Whining is what you hear from your manual transmission if it has straight cut gears or no oil. ;)

Plenty of meat left that would be visible on other cars
https://i.ibb.co/D80LfYY/0908191148b.jpg

OK so were is the caliper?

Where is it? I had to lift it up. After I removed the wheel. After I jacked the car.
That is the entire basis of my whining and bitching and ranting!

Thanks Tcoat!! I was wondering if I could complain here about how screwed up the dipstick is. Er, on the car, not the OP!! :threadjacked:

How would that be visible with any other car with calipers? What cars did you own where that was open and visible?

Well, the really annoying thing about this car is that I have to stick the key in it every time I want to drive it. You look in every other car in the parking lot and there is a button to start it! Some you don't even have to start!

Go to any parking lot, and look at the calipers of any car.
You will clearly see the brake pads

Jesus OP, how hard is life for you? :lol:

what other cars have you owned?

Lonely or bored maybe? ;) :D

Bruh, you really gotta relax.

I can't see the pads on any of the cars in my garage right now. At best, I can potentially look at the bottom of the calipers on my wife's Yaris and deduce the pad thickness by the gap next to the rotor. I might be able to see the FR-S's if I had my thinner-spoked, slightly larger track wheels on, but I doubt it.

That being said once the wheels are off, the "window" in the caliper is fine for a quick check when I rotate tires (I'm not sure why you can't see it). If it gets to the point that I can't tell from the window, then it's getting close but here's the thing - the brakes on these (and most modern, small) cars last a crazy long time. I still have the original pads on my '13 with 50k miles, and that includes an average of six AutoX a year since new (I do swap out for track pads on track days). My wife's Yaris has 100k+ miles on the original pads, and there's still a ton of life left in them! I bought a new set just b/c I figured it was probably time, and the original pads are still well over half the thickness of the new ones!

That being said, as others have mentioned it's very easy to loosen the bottom bolt and remove the top to swing the caliper out if you want to double-check. If you check them when you rotate your tires at an oil change, they will not go bad in the time between one oil change and the next.

"I can't even see if my pads are low. Worst brake design ever."

Well, I don't know bout that - :iono:

Back in the day, to inspect the brake shoe thickness, one had to first jack up the car with a flimsy bumper jack, then go find the cement blocks (that your dad used for something else) to put under the car, then find the big star lug nut wrench (that your brother used and didn't put back), then take off the wheel.

Next, pull on the brake drum and see that it is stuck, so go find the BFH (that someone didn't put back in the combine's tool box) then beat on the drum to the point you were afraid you were going to break it. Then if you were lucky, the drum would pop off, exposing you to a face full of finely ground asbestos fibers for you to inhale.

NOW, you can inspect the brake shoes for wear.

Oh, did I mention that, just as you started, it was getting dark and starting to snow and the wind was whipping snow around from both sides of the car?

:sigh:


humfrz

PS - I left out important step, who knows what it was?

What does that have to do with having to get keys out of my pocket to start the car?