Hey all, Well my car has around 22,000 miles on it and the brakes are starting to squeek under light pressure.... (not under hard)... i think its about time for me to purchase new brakes. Since its fairly cheap compared to dealer prices . From what ive read i am probably going to do them myself... I just wanted a general consensus of what is the best brake pad to buy and where to get it from... I would also like to know which brakes people have tried and they totally hated them... which throw off the least/ most dust. ... Also, which ones have the best stopping power and which will last the longest..... Sorry if im asking to many questions but ive performed a search and i couldn't get a concise answer.. thank you

damian

 

I've only got 13,000 on my car and my Brembos always squeal under light pressure, heavy pressure, you name it ... they always squeal. From opinions of people on this board, the Brembos simply squeal - it is their nature to do so.

It's very annoying ... but what can you do. At least you can stop on a dime!

 

I recently replaced my front brakes on my 6MT -- rotors and pads. I put the OEM rotors but but Hawk pads. The right side squeaks EXTREMELY loudly under light pressure. Sounds horrible... I don't know if it's the Hawk pads and I don't know if I should go out and get OEM pads now. The OEM pads are so expensive and who knows if it will fix the problem...

 

What are you guys' driving style? I have close to 23,000 miles on my 6MT as well and I haven't heard mine squeaked yet. I don't baby this car either. If I see an opening, I punch it and if there are slower cars in front of me, I'll apply the brakes liberally. I've only had to hard brake 3 times due to idiots cutting in front of me when their lane was completely open.

 

most people with the brembo's replace them with rather low miles on there car. mine were gone with 25k i think. rotex pads went on as the replacement and they make very little noise.

 

i drive the car carefully most of the time, like an asshole the rest of the time... i really don't hit the brakes all that hard... when i did my suspension i noticed that the brakes would need to be changed soon... considering that i am going to be putting on the aspec body kit on next weekend, i figured what the hell let me go ahead and change the brakes also... i never noticed the squeak from the brakes before... But maybe its due to the fact that the weather has been nicer... but who knows... i don't want to reach the point where the warning sensors start to cut into my rotors....

 

I'll admit I'm an aggressive driver... I accelerate hard and brake hard. I changed the brakes (rotors and pads) at 45,000km. Hopefully, I'll find a solution to the squeaking one day. Right now, my rears are pretty dead too, so I gotta replace those as well... I've already bought the rotors/pads, so it might be today's project.

 

I tried something I saw on this forum about "bedding" the brakes properly. So, do a search to find the procedure. I never get any squeaks from my Brembo's. If only that process got rid of the dust....ughhh!!! I hate dust.

 

where is a cheap place to get the rotex pads????

 

how are the greenstuff brakes???

 

Mine squeak under light application. But you are right on the money with this post IMO..

 

Ok,,, so what would be a comparable replacement for the brembo pads that cost a little bit cheaper, throw off less brake dust, have awesome stopping power, and last a little bit longer?? im trying to decide between hawks, rotex, or greenstuff... or anything other type of brand that i have missed...

 

^-I have the rotex pads, give off very little dust and dont make much noise. I think they dont stop quite as well although its been so long I'm not sure about that. I plan on trying greestuff for my next set of pads, just to see what else is out there and not because I'm unhappy with the rotex.

The rotex gold pads ran me about 75 (or 85?) shipped from new york to ca.

 

I also have the Rotex Gold Kevlar pad on my front Brembos of my '04 manual TL. It took three bedding in sessions to eliminate the squealing, however when turning full into a parking slot at very low speed, they will squeal and what's worse is backing up. They squeal like crazy in reverse, but this might be my own fault. I elected not to install the stainless steel shims from the stock pads on my Rotex pads and I strongly suspect those are anti-squeal shims.

As for braking with the Rotex pads, they are not as good as the stock pads, but unless you get a spec'd OEM pad or better, don't expect braking to improve over the stock pads. They have a little more resistance feel to the brake pedal.. not as "mushy" as the stock units (which are not bad at all).

And finally the dusting. This is the only reason I replaced my stock pads. I just washed my car this past Sunday. On May 13th, I had new tires installed and while my car was up on jack stands in my garage and before putting the wheels back on, I washed them. Mind you, this was nearly 2 months ago. The amount of dust that accumulated in that period was slighty more than one would see on the automatic TL, or about 85 to 90% less than the stock pads. In other words, one heck of a lot less dust. And the dust is not black, but rather a charcoal salmon color.