Ceramic Brake Pads

[SixShooter'00Camaro]

so about 3 weeks ago i did a front brake overhaul on the maro, new rotors, new pads, and painted the calipers. well i switch to ceramic pads to keep brake dust down, well i knew that they would make a grinding sort of noise untill the broke in, well 3 weeks later they are still doing it. i have never braked hard since replacing, and i drove around backwards, stopping, cause i was told that would help, well they are still making the grinding noise. any thoughts? thanks guys.

[accident_prone247]

Re: Ceramic Brake Pads

are there any new scratches on your rotors like if something got caught between the pads and the rotors? Also did you spray both the pads and the rotor down with brake cleaner before install? if so i'd take them off and see if theres anything visiually off and if not maybe take some sand paper and rough the pads up alittle bit then clean them up with some good brake cleaner and let them reseat themselves but they should be seated already.

[fredbmxer4life]

Re: Ceramic Brake Pads

Make sure you didnt bend the metal inserts that sit inside the floater (one of top one on bottom) that the pads sit on. If they are bent the slightest when pulling them out they will scrape on the rotors and its horrible. My ceramic never grinded i just had problem with metal piece but was easy fix.

[ssms5411]

Re: Ceramic Brake Pads

I've ran ceramics for about 8 years now and never have had a problem, just the metal piece on some which I just took off.

[checkbit]

Re: Ceramic Brake Pads

so about 3 weeks ago i did a front brake overhaul on the maro, new rotors, new pads, and painted the calipers. well i switch to ceramic pads to keep brake dust down, well i knew that they would make a grinding sort of noise untill the broke in, well 3 weeks later they are still doing it. i have never braked hard since replacing, and i drove around backwards, stopping, cause i was told that would help, well they are still making the grinding noise. any thoughts? thanks guys.

did you turn your rotors when you installed the new pads? sometimes the transfer layer from the old pads can affect the performance and sound of your new pads. and did you follow the manufacturer's instructions for bedding in (burnishing) the new pads?

[fredbmxer4life]

Re: Ceramic Brake Pads

did you turn your rotors when you installed the new pads? sometimes the transfer layer from the old pads can affect the performance and sound of your new pads. and did you follow the manufacturer's instructions for bedding in (burnishing) the new pads?

He said he installed new rotors. I dont know where noise is coming from other than the metal piece that sits on the floater. Shouldnt have any noise since everything was new only thing i could thing comes bad from everything being new is that there is weak breaking for first few miles till you break everything in. Maybe dust guard could be scraping also i know my year bird didnt come with one doesnt mean anything for other years though. They can scrap causing awful sound.

[EarlR]

Re: Ceramic Brake Pads

Did you actually bed the pads in? Not sure that ceramic pads need it, but I couldn't hurt. Go find a street or road where you can stop and start without causing a problem, and make half a dozen starts and stops, starting at a slow speed (10-15 mph) and light brake pressure, and build a little more speed and increase pedal pressure on each successive stop - the last stop should be from a pretty healthy speed (45-55 mph if safe) with pretty hard braking. Then drive the car home, using as little brake as possible, and park it until the brakes cool down (no parking brake). Ideally this should be done when the pads/rotors are new, but I might help even now. Again, I don't know how much or even if this is necessary with ceramic pads - I just installed ceramics the last time I changed pads, and did the bedding, and they make no noise at all.

And fredbmxer - wth is a "floater"?

[fredbmxer4life]

Re: Ceramic Brake Pads

And fredbmxer - wth is a "floater"?

We have floating brake calipers the piece of metal that the caliper can move freely inside of that is attached hub assembly. Wasnt going to spend an hour looking for the correct term.

[EarlR]

Re: Ceramic Brake Pads

We have floating brake calipers the piece of metal that the caliper can move freely inside of that is attached hub assembly. Wasnt going to spend an hour looking for the correct term.

Ok, gotcha - I really had no idea what you were referring to; now I do. FWIW it's called the caliper bracket.

[checkbit]

Re: Ceramic Brake Pads

He said he installed new rotors. I dont know where noise is coming from other than the metal piece that sits on the floater. Shouldnt have any noise since everything was new only thing i could thing comes bad from everything being new is that there is weak breaking for first few miles till you break everything in. Maybe dust guard could be scraping also i know my year bird didnt come with one doesnt mean anything for other years though. They can scrap causing awful sound.

my bad. i missed that.

Did you actually bed the pads in? Not sure that ceramic pads need it, but I couldn't hurt. Go find a street or road where you can stop and start without causing a problem, and make half a dozen starts and stops, starting at a slow speed (10-15 mph) and light brake pressure, and build a little more speed and increase pedal pressure on each successive stop - the last stop should be from a pretty healthy speed (45-55 mph if safe) with pretty hard braking. Then drive the car home, using as little brake as possible, and park it until the brakes cool down (no parking brake). Ideally this should be done when the pads/rotors are new, but I might help even now. Again, I don't know how much or even if this is necessary with ceramic pads - I just installed ceramics the last time I changed pads, and did the bedding, and they make no noise at all.

And fredbmxer - wth is a "floater"?

every set of brake pads (for street cars) needs to be burnished to maximize stopping ability. every manufacturer has their own instructions for how to burnish new pads.

tirerack has a decent listing of some popular brands and associated instructions.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete....jsp?techid=85

[fredbmxer4life]

Re: Ceramic Brake Pads

Yeah thats it, couldnt find name for it so i just threw something out there. Kind of like you remember someone but you dont their name so you just throw a "hey, how are you" out there... lol.

Any luck with the brakes sixshooter?

[SixShooter'00Camaro]

Re: Ceramic Brake Pads

no luck with the breaks....

earl, i have about 1000 miles on the new pads and rotors, so do you think if i try the "bedding" even now it would help?


there is no scaring on the rotors so i dont think the metal inserts are bent,
i was also thinking about doing what accident prone was talking about with the sand paper and break clean? but i havent had the time to take everything apart

[fredbmxer4life]

Re: Ceramic Brake Pads

If the pads came with any grease i would try that too. Stick them all over the pads where they make contact with caliper. Might want to check brake fluid make sure it isnt over filled. Then when car is jacked up so if its easy to spin the wheel by hand and make sure it isnt tight.

[EarlR]

Re: Ceramic Brake Pads

no luck with the breaks....

earl, i have about 1000 miles on the new pads and rotors, so do you think if i try the "bedding" even now it would help?

I honestly don't know - like I said, I'm not even sure you need to bed ceramic brakes. I've just always done that with semi-metallic pads. I'm pretty sure it won't hurt to try it though. This set I just put on was my first set of ceramic pads ever - so far I'm not terribly impressed with the stopping ability, although there is definitely a reduction in dust. Then again, I was running HP+ pads on the front before, so I guess there was bound to be a little difference.

I would definitely advise againt putting grease on the backs of your pads - the stuff they make to stop pad squeal is actually more like an adhesive.

I also meant to ask, can you describe the noise a little more? Is it the same under light and heavy braking? How loud is it? Is is a high-pitched noise, like a squeal, or is it more like metal on metal grinding? Do they make any noise when you're moving with your foot off the brake pedal? On most cars the pads will still lightly contact the rotors even when the brakes are not applied, and sometimes you can hear that.

[checkbit]

Re: Ceramic Brake Pads

all brake pads, even ceramics, need to be burnished. measure the runout on your rotors. you may have gotten an uneven transfer layer on your rotors.

and i missed the part where the OP said they got new rotors, my bad.