I'm very easy on Brakes, and I do a lot of Highway driving. My '08 Vantage V8 has a little over 22,000 miles, the front pads are less than 1/2 worn and the rears are ready to be replaced. Strange.

 

I remember the tech at Aston telling me that is common, not sure why? Traction control?

 

I noticed that the rear wheels on my DB9 always seemed to have more brake dust on them then the fronts.... Softer pads? Rear brake bias?

 

That's sometimes due to the handbrake pads if it is not perfectly adjusted. Too many times it is done with the car on the lift. Factory guy told me it needs to be done with the cars weight on the wheels or the pads move slightly when the car is lowered.

High rear pad wear is often a sign of lots of trail braking (lightly covering the brake pedal in cornering etc) Mine does it as I'm quiet gentle on the brakes
Its also associated with the rear brake squeal which many get.

 

Certain all-wheel-drive BMW's are notorious for accelerated rear brake pad wear. It has to do with the Stability Control functions and the way the all-wheel drive works. Of course, your Aston is not the latter....

 

I just had my rear pads replaced on my 2009 V8V at 18,000 miles. The fronts are fine still.

My dealer service manager, who I think is quite good (Los Gatos) indicated that this was common and the way he sees it all the time. He indicated the fronts were better engineered. Maybe it's the size or something.

Perfectly normal apparently.

 

I'd heard it was the traction control that hits the rear brakes to give an instant reduction in wheelspin, whilst the power is reduced from the engine.

Makes sense, if the whole powertrain is spinning the wheels much faster than the roadspeed, it could take a second or two for all that momentum to reduce if the TC just cut engine power, so it applies the rear brakes until the back wheels are going at a reasonable speed for the roadspeed.