So, I'm not going to call out the location that inspected this vehicle that my wife drives daily... other than they are an official Chevy dealer, in PA.

However, we took a trip last weekend in the Tahoe, and about 1/2 way down and ALL THE WAY BACK for 120 miles we had an awful screeching noise.
While running through my mind of bearings and brakes, etc, and still driving, I isolated it to the driver rear.

Got home, pulled the tire, pulled the brake, and found this...
Now... am I in the wrong, in thinking that 1 year ago this brake was 'good enough' to pass inspection... or are we all thinking they never looked at the brakes?!
What good is an inspection, if they skip parts?

I get that I'm responsible for my cars, but that includes having it inspected, BY LAW. Not my choice. I'd be happy to do it myself!

Anyway, new pads on it now, and WOW are they thick. Fronts are good too.
She drives about 15,000/year, and I just don't believe I'd have personally passed these rear brakes 15k ago...

I believe these are the original pads from 2009, and 133,000 miles ago.

I'll admit GM did the brakes on these beasts right. They are both huge and with deep pads, only need changed every 10 years!
Also they are easy to remove/replace.
Like a Toyota caliper from 20 years ago

 

holy cow

 

Don't the brake pads have the noise making scrapers on them anymore to notify you when they're due for replacement? Or was that what was making the screeching noise?

 

the inspection should document the brake pad lining measurement or at least give a % of pad remaining. 2mm is when change is required.
saying brakes ok on an inspection sheet is worthless to people; good shops provide numbers.

are they all like that? did they looked at the outer pad and not the inner?

 

Yes, the awful screeching noise was the brake squealer. It's annoying as heck, but no damage was done. I prefer to not let it get to that point.
The inspection station may have looked at the outside pad, as this was the inside pad. I'm going to assume they either didn't look or didn't look close enough. Either way, I'm not impressed.
The outside pad was a hair thicker, but still not what I'd ride on.

 

I had a similar problem with my 2002 Tahoe. The rear pads were worn, so I had them replaced, the fronts had been replaced previously so they were checked and found to have plenty of lining on them. After 6 - 8 months, I was performing some other maintenance on the Tahoe and found the rear pads to be SIGNIFICANTLY worn down (both the inner and outer pads on both sides). I thought at first the calipers were dragging, but checking into it further the fronts were still fine. I took it out for a spin and when I got back in the driveway, I used one of those IR non-contact thermometers to check rotor temps. Both rears were quite hot, the fronts were not even lukewarm. Turns out the pistons on the front calipers were stuck/frozen and I was basically using just the rears to stop the vehicle, which resulted in all the wear I was seeing on the rears.

 

Were both left and right equally worn?

 

within a few mm of each other, so I’m going to say even enough.