Ask a Technician: Can Braking Too Hard Damage Something?

All drivers know the importance of a car's brakes. When you need to stop in a hurry, you rely on your brakes to get you out of trouble. However, it is possible to brake too hard. If you slam the brakes on, can you really cause damage? Lynch Ford Chevrolet has the answer.

Brake pads. Your brake pads (sometimes called shoes) are a wearable part like any other on your car. As such, they are manufactured to be durable and effective, but they only have a certain lifespan. Occasionally braking hard (as you might expect to do) is unlikely to damage them severely, but if you are continually heavy on the brake pedal, then you are going to wear them at a higher rate than normal. If so, expect to have to change your brake pads more regularly than other drivers might have to.

Brake disks and rotors. Brake disks and rotors are also wearable parts, much like the pads, but you would expect them to have a longer life span. If you regularly maintain your pads, for example, the rotors should last as long as the manufacturer recommends they will. However, if you aren't maintaining your pads, the rotors (and disks) are at risk too. Prolonged hard braking, when the pads are worn, could very quickly cause damage to the rotors.

Tires. Tires maintain traction between the car and the road surface, and require a certain amount of tread to do this effectively. Heavy braking places undue pressure on the surface of the tire and is likely to reduce the tread. The nature of hard braking is such that the tread is likely to wear in a very uneven manner too, making certain parts of the tire much more susceptible to a puncture or to other damage.

Indirect effects. Of course, the real damage from braking too hard comes from the potential consequences. Braking hard greatly increases the risk that another vehicle will hit you from behind, or that your brakes will lock, your car will skid, and you will collide with one or more other vehicles. The potential damage from such a collision is almost limitless, so it pays to maintain good driving habits that prevent the need to apply your brakes so hard in the first place.