Would you say that is normal or abnormal to need new breaks and rotors at 26,500 miles? I do normal driving, 50% stop and go. It just seems a little early for this much hardware...

My originals went 45K and there was still some left. I drive an auto and at the time I was about 50% stop and go. Did you look at them yourself or did someone tell you they need replacement. What's wrong with the rotors? I didn't swap them out I think until about 90K.

I get well over 100K on my pads, but I don't use them anymore than necessary. If you work 'em hard then 26K is not abnormal for pads, but I wouldn't think the rotors would be gone too at that point. Not unless you went through the pads and ground the rotors down with your calipers.

i replaced my front brakes around 30,000 miles

All 4 of my pads and the parking brake shoes are toast at 32K.

I wouldn't say it's unusual, but it would depend on driving style.

The parking brake is from the GF driving with it on.

All 4 of my front pads were completely worn at about 25,000 mi. I do a good deal of city driving and in heavy stop/go metropolitan rush hour traffic. Plus off-roading about 1-2x per month.

Wow, she's a veritable harbinger of vehicle destruction! Between hitting into parking lot safety polls, driving with the parking brake on, backing into other xterras off-road and almost ramming head-on into large trees; I'm surprised she is still licensed to drive! Another failure of PennDOT driver education!