2008-ish Caravan brake upgrade

Hey, Knowledgeable Ones:

My friend has a 2008 or so Grand Caravan, bought new. Since they got it they have been plagued by poor brake wear and problems. It goes through rotors and pads like crazy, and has had at least one caliper replaced. I'm not familiar with the car but he says the brakes are just undersized for the weight of the vehicle.

Anybody with similar experience? Anybody know a GRM-friendly upgrade route to source more robust parts from another Mopar product?

Thanks, as always.

No, Caravan brakes just suck, especially with each body/chassis change. AFAIK, there isn't any upgrades to more robust parts, unless they are stuffed in the StarParts catalog.

My 2000 gives me no trouble that way. It had hydraulic issues, but no problems stopping the car or wearing down to metal in 15k miles or anything.

If you google "dodge grand caravan brake upgrade," it should send you to dodgeforum dot com, where you can see several threads about this issue and some possible suggestions for improvement. Calipers sticking & poor OEM parts choices seem to be recurring themes.

Oh, I just remembered.... the RT body brake rotors are Chinese in origin, so maybe? Plus I want to say the specs on them suck too. Can't turn them but a few thou before they need replacement.

Lifetime warrantied replacement parts will at least cover the future parts cost. I don't ever turn my rotors, just take them in for a swap whenever I feel any vibration.

call performance friction and ask if they've got linings for that vehicle. that's going to be your most effective bang-for-the-buck improvement.

Just a thought: the same plant in Windsor ON makes minivans for North America and for Europe. I wonder if maybe the European ones get upgraded brakes (because autobahn)? There must be somebody out there in GRM land with Chrysler inside knowledge who knows about this, including whether it's true. If it is, we know the necessary parts are in some parts book somewhere, just waiting to be ordered.

Thanks for all the suggestions, everybody.

Would the VW Routan have a better set of brakes? The VW engineers might have specced something better than the regular Caravan.

the routan did use different front brakes than the caravan according to the wagner E-cat.
Routan shared its front pads with the nitro, wrangler and liberty. Rears were the same as caravans. Rotors appear to be the same on both as do the calipers. Looks like the brake upgrade is just in the pads.