2004-5 had really bad, undersized brakes. They upgraded them in 2006. Our 2006 Armada has not had any brake issues and we have about 120,000 miles on it. The paint is gone, oxidized away, down to base primer. The interior dash has multiple cracks, and the kids have pretty much destroyed all the vents, flip up covers (over accessory sockets), and so forth. The seat stitching has fallen apart, so the seats are coming apart. Looks like the leather is bad, but it's fine, just the stitching.
The Armada is super heavy and goes through tires. We are on our 5th set. Using Nitto Crosstek's currently and am very happy with them. Considerable improvements on the ride quality for the whole rig.
Mechanically, the Armada has been very solid. The engine/trans are superb, one of the best on the road. However, after 110k mikes, one of our exhaust headers has developed a crack. We've learned that the Armada is very picky about oil filters. For such a big V8, the filter is smaller than a Honda 4 banger. You NEED a proper hi flow filter or else it will wine like a ... like a machine with a high pitched wine. LOL.
