First off, let me tell you that I hate doing brake jobs. I was going to have Mike do my brakes for me, but since it was near 50 out, I was like “what the hell, I’ll do it myself” :banghead:
The bolts to the calipers were overtightened before, so it was a BITCH to get off. One of my craftsman ratchets actually broke in the process, leaving my thumb tore the fuck up. Anyways, I got the old rotors off (on the front), and put the new OEM ones on. The Hawk HPS pads that are on there now were super meaty about 3/8" - 1/2" left, so I figured they are fine. Here are some pictures of the old ones, and the new ones before I drove it:
old ones:
So, I was happy. Then I did an oil change (gross black oil came out, but it was 4.5 qts or so, so thats good), and then I took the car to the parts store to return the oil. The brakes felt better, even though I hadn’t done the rears yet. It still didn’t make a perfect braking noise though. When I got to the parts store, I took these two picturs:
They are not grooves, as you can see in one of them, I smeared it with my finger. What I want to know is, after a few days of braking, and some hard brakes, will this wear even out, or will the grooves in my pads continue to created new grooves in my new rotors? That is not an option, so if this will not fix itself after some hard braking, I will just go buy some new pads. I just would hate to throw out a set of like new Hawk pads because of some high spots.
I don’t know much about brakes, so what do you guys think?
As a second day update, I took your advice and went out to bed in the brakes. I did about… 10 70-20 brakes, never got to a complete stop so the pads would put deposits on the rotors once hot. Here are some pictures after just those:
As you can tell, one side is already there, and one is almost there!
Funny thing, as I was doing this, there was a cop pulled over on the side of the road shooting radar. He got me doing one of my near 50 mph slowdowns. At that time though, I wasn’t speeding, or he didn’t see me, because he didn’t go after me , phew!
looks to me like you should have maybe scuffed the pads before throwing them back in. Or just bought a new set, maybe it’s just me though seeing how I get a really decent price on stuff. If you ever need brake stuff let me know next time.
yea next time you just do rotors, sand down ur pads a little bit to make them wear evenly on the nice new flat surface, or just do some good decels a couple days in a row
should have sanded the pads smooth first before them back on. They will smooth out after a thousand miles or so but braking will be poor for a while. also eats at away at rotor life
On a related note, I don’t want to start a new thread about this, so I wanted to do a partial hijack since this is a brakes thread. I’m looking at rotors for the spring, to be put on a bit before the first autocross, and I’m currently looking at either Brembo blanks (run about $55 ea) or Cryo-Stops (about $45 ea). I’ve never heard of the latter, and I’m curious about them. Should I go with one of the above, or just get whatever’s cheap at a parts store?
