Uneven pad wear

[kiwifraser]

My front left brakes started making a nasty metal on metal scraping noise today. Looking at the outside pad, they are maybe half worn, so that means the inside one must be gone. I guess that having the piston against the inside pad makes it potentially wear more quickly, but does anyone know if the difference in pad wear is usually this much?
The brakes are standard 5.7 VXR

[Monnington]

Shouldn't be any difference in wear either side in theory.

They are sliding calipers though (as oppposed to 'opposed piston'), so in my experience the sliding pins have a habit of sticking which can cause uneven wear..

[stevemac]

don't know if its the same caliper/pad arrangement as my yr 2000 GTS but i've had the exact same issue. It was caused by mixed metals/road salt/corrosion between the caliper body and the steel inserts on which the pad rests. This had got so bad one of the edges of one pad was jammed solid.. result uneven wear on one pad and the other pad had worn right down. Solution was to disassemble caliper, clean up corrosion and use copper grease beneath the steel insert.

[kiwifraser]

Cheers stevemac,

I'll remove them and give them a good clean. Any recommendations for good pads? Currently running red-stuff, and the seem pretty good for road use.