This car arrived at the dealer on 10/2018 and the sales guy drove it until we purchased it in April 2019. The initial mileage was 19,018 and when we bought the car it had about 20,400 miles on it.

When the CPO inspection was completed on 10/2018 the front brake pads were 12/32 and rear were 8/32. Right after I bought the car I took it to an independent Volvo mechanic (guy I used for my other Volvo's) and had a pre-purchase inspection done. The front pads were at 12/32 and rear were 8/32.

Last October 2019 State inspection (dealer) showed we had 25,488 on the car and the front pads were 12/32 and the rear were 10/32 (rear pads grew thicker?)
Just had a State inspection (dealer) completed and we 31,307 miles on the car and they say I have 2/32 on the front and 5/32 on the rear. Something doesn't add up.

Either I have very sticky calipers on this car or someone doesn't know how to measure. BUT this is the same dealer that I had to report to Volvo America for not doing all the work on a recall. If someone didn't know about cars they wouldn't have checked but I do and I checked. They said bring the car in and we'll do the entire work required on the recall. Volvo America was paying them $660 for the job and parts so do the darn job! They gave me a $50 gift card, some people might call it hush money.

So just to have another set of eyes I had my 35 year old neighbor come over. He has a nice pole barn and does side work and also worked at shops turning wrenches. I didn't tell him why I was asking him to take a peak at the pads but he immediately said, there's a lot of pad there. But to make sure we'll pull the wheels tomorrow to look at the inner pads. But if inner pads are worse, that means a sticking caliper and on a car with such low miles I would not be a happy guy. Normally I'd jack it up, pull the wheel and look but I had a reaction to the flu shot and my arm has been sore for 16 days. Really, really sore and I can't think of lifting that tire.

Poor guy behind me at the dealer was having a new battery installed. I heard them say it was going to be $308. Really?

Does this all seem right?  Edited story -----

We didn't have time yesterday to pull the wheels but we did today.  Pulled the drivers side wheel and the inner and outer pad was nice and thick.  Put the wheel back on and my neighbor says we are at it lets pull the right side wheel.  Outer pad was nice and thick but inner was shot.  So now there is a bigger problem than needing pads.  In my State at annual inspection they pull one wheel in the front and then the opposite in the rear.  So if the inspector had pulled the left front everything would have looked fine and nobody would have known there was a problem.    So now this comes down to was this happening from day one, from the day I bought the car and when it went through the CPO inspection.  On the CPO inspection sheet there no place for measurements of inner and outer pads.  Even on his current State inspection it says Front Brake Pad(s ) 2/32.  Hm?  Wouldn't that wouldn't be one pad and not pads.  Again something doesn't seem right about all this on a CPO car.

Something makes me think that this was an issue from day one of ownership but I will be eating the cost of a new caliper.  Our Honda SUV has over 115,000 miles on it, we've had it for four years, it wasn't a CPO car but did have the 150 point inspection done on it.    In the four years we've owned it, driving to Florida and back up to the north east States we've spent $220 on repairs and that was just recently for new front brakes.    I'm also getting the low battery warning and Sirius radio hunting again.   The Volvo needed a new Air conditioning control unit (luckily warranty) or it would have been $1,000.  January 2020 the low battery problem was fixed by a radio software update do I need another update?   So in the 1.5 years and on a 31,000 mile car we are looking at a caliper problem.   

Looking at what has transpired in the past 1.5 years on a low mileage car, I'm not really impressed.    We normally keep our cars for a while but if what I've seen so far on this V60 is any indication Honda may find another customer.

Did you find the cause for uneven pad wear?
Some bind between the brakepads and the caliper and/or the caliper and the mounting bracket?

It would be good to discover the root fault with the caliper. You might call the Volvo district office for support with this question. Ask them why the Volvo caliper failed like this. Maybe they'll surprise you?

Bill

Here is a follow-up ---

I contacted the sales guy who is now the sales manager. I explained that calipers don't normally do this unless the car is much older or has many more miles on the car. That there are two things in play:

1. Caliper slide is so rusty that the pad was not moving and in that case it was most likely in bad shape when they sold me the car. The CPO inspection should have seen such a thing.
2. The TSB is valid and the part about the unusual wear on the right, inner pad is at fault.

He agreed and was going to talk with the service manager. After my phone call I emailed a copy of the TSB.

Just had a call from the service manager and he said that the TSB hit the ail on the head and he agrees with my assessment. He's going to order the parts to fix the issue and order pads, will call me when they arrive.

If you read the TSB the premature wear of that inner pad covers a lot of years and a lot of cars.

Watched the vid and I'm big on using synthetic grease and I liberally use it. Making sure not to get it on pads, etc.

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2018/MC-10157878-9999.pdf

Agree that the Volvo may not be for you.

Jaguar offers a 5-year/60k mile warranty AND free maintenance.
--
XC60 / Odyssey

I've owned two other Volvo's and they were fine.
About 4 years ago I stepped off the 20 year addiction to Jaguars. ;)

Maybe it is just this Volvo. Caliper issues normally don't appear at 30,000 miles. Yeah I've had caliper issues but on my older what I all beater cars, cars with over 100,000 or more miles.

Look here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdc3PZ0gFvA

I’m sorry to hear about your rear brake frustration but at the same time I’m interested in what you’ve experienced. We too purchased a dealer owned 2018 S60 in Jan 2019. The dealer had operated the car for about 9 months as a demonstrator and shop loaner. It not had 4000 miles on it when we purchased it.

Soon afterwards I noticed both rear rotors (Outboard surfaces) were already getting badly grooved. The outboard pads, however, were still nice and thick. I figured “Oh great, Volvo has bowed to the consumers that can’t stand a little brake dust on their rims and has built the car with some sort of rock hard ceramic pads.” I pointed out the deteriorating rotors to the dealer service rep who told me “Don’t worry, you’re still under warranty so we’ll keep an eye on it.” I have no idea what the inboard surfaces look like.

I also notice another oddity with the brakes - when coming to a stop on a slight uphill slope the car stops fine and then you know how a car will slightly rock backward after stopping? Perfectly normal for any car. But on this one, when the car stops and rocks back, I can feel the brake pedal sink ever so slightly downward. It’s quite subtle. For some time now I have pictured something wrong with the calipers like maybe the pistons are cocking a bit within their bores, allowing a tiny bit more fluid to flow into the caliper. I know that sounds crazy but after reading your testimony I’m thinking it might not be so crazy.

After 45 years of owning Volvos this Is the first one with the rear calipers doing double duty as an integrated parking brake. I’m not impressed. I plan to take the car to a different dealer and see what their story is. If nothing else, I can make sure the service rep documents my complaint in the service write-up in case I need to take elevate the problem to a higher authority.