My rear brakes have gone out(metal on metal) but wanted to know how often the rear are used compared to the front? I am going to be replacing them first thing after Christmas. Right now you can hear them grind every time I stop pretty much!! I was always under the impression that they were only used when the E-brake or when doing a hard brake! Thanks for the help!

 

Rear brakes are used all the time!

You have confused the amout of braking they do with their use.
Front brakes do 60 -70% of the work but the rears alway do some.
Without rear brakes the rear of the vehicle will attempt to pass the front unless it is perfectly aligned.

 

Guess that makes sense!!! Thanks!!

 

As NH_USA said, the rear brakes are used all the time. That is another reason why on many cars, the rear discs are smaller than the front discs. They don't do anything near as much as the front for braking, unless you are driving in reverse all the time of course

 

Both front and rear brakes are used every time you depress the brake peddle. Because of the laws of physics the front brakes do as much as 70% of the stopping.

 

and it also prevents the car from nose diving every time u stop. im pretty much convinced they work almost as hard as the front, well you hav obviously become used to how it brakes at the moment, just replace the back pads and do a skim and believe me u gonna notice the difference, it will also mess the abs around if u only running on the front. and remember the front is gona have to work even harder ,resulting in alot quicker wear to front disks and pads....unless you u drive a ford bantam ,the back brakes is kinda all that stops the bakkie ,all the front ones do is smoke and overheat..