So I took my X in to have the grinding noise checked out. I was pretty positive it was the front brakes. They are the stock brakes and I have 65k on them with aggressive driving behind them so I considered myself due.

So I took them in to BigO to have them checked out. They called me at work and said the front brakes where down to less then 10% left and the rears where at about 50%. They recommended only doing the front with ceramic with a life time guarantee. It was $150 so I had no issues.

Now here is where things get interesting. The guy tells me the mechanic says I need all new shocks. The oem shocks are shot. Now if these where the oem shocks I would probably agreed, but thanks to advice from this board shortly after I got the 03 I put on Bilstein 5100's. So I started in on the guy telling him they where not the oem shocks and he should have be able to clearly see that. The guy on the phone starts to back pedal and says "Well this is just what the mechanic said"
When I got there I requested to see my front brakes. One side of each pair looked completely gone and one side was even cracking. So as far as the brakes go I felt everything was square.

I then asked to see the manager. I told him what happened with the shocks and let him know I considered what happened was them trying to just push a completely new set of shocks. He blah blah blah about how they don't do that kind of thing and then went and got the mechanic.

What he actually found was that from his inspection the bushings where badly cracked and needed replacing he assumed the shocks where the stock oem (yeah right) I looked at the bushing and he was correct. They do look like hell.

Now that I have rambled on I'll get to my questions. First do breaks mainly wear on one side of each set? I thought they would wear evenly on each side. Second with aggressive driving how long do brakes last? Third if my bushings are shot on the X can I just replace the bushings or do I need to replace the shocks? How do I tell if the shock is bad and what is the life span of 5100's?

Oh and I know I can do this work on my own but it's 107 degrees here. There is no way I'm jacking that truck up and working for a few hours.