I've been driving this vehicle 20-25K a year for five years, pretty similar city/hwy ratio. I don't tow, I don't live in the mountains, and I tend to manage the throttle and following distance more than being brake happy.
Last set of pads lasted 65K+. They were probably better pads, but I don't recall for sure.
AAP agreed that 20K wasn't much for mileage ... but the warranty only applied if they were "defective" -- not "too crappy to be worth a $#!&."
Not that new pads cost much, or that it takes more than 30 minutes to swap out both sides. They are the "silver" ... but I still expected more. Rotors were new with those pads.
And just the rear -- fronts look like I would have expected, at least half of the material is still there. Those are Wear Ever Silvers on new rotors as well, replaced at the same time as the rears.
The manager wanted to blame the calipers, and I suppose that is a possibility, but they seemed to compress pretty easily, and I don't hear any dragging with the new pads. Maybe for fun I'll get a rebuild kit and new lines.
If these pads get me another year I guess I'll be satisfied then. 50K for cheapies is about what I was expecting.