Tomorrow will tell the tale, If I need rotors **ouch** I'll have to deal with it . Hoping to flush my old fluid too. Today I felt the rotors with my fingertips, no huge grooves...

I have no symptoms of any noise or weird feel on the old brakes.

let us know how it turns out


:thumbs:

New pads are in..turned out I did not need rears, and my rotors were fine. I got the front pads replaced with the ceramics and the fluid flushed for less than 2 bills OTD. I returned the rears for $59.00 refund..

So all good news, plus the mech noticed my front top shock bolts weren't tightened snug completely..(Grrr I just paid a different shop good $$$ to install them.)

Car feels great with firm pedal.

you got lucky and got out cheep.

Check out my "Low Buck" thread in the C5 genl' forum for the full story on this car.

I'm going with Autozone Duralast Gold Ceramic padlets. I put them on my former 2012 GS and they were awesome, very low dust and no squeaks (you just have to break them in).

Duralast Gold/Brake Pads - Front
Price: $54.99
Part Number: DG1419
Warranty: Limited Lifetime
Notes: *OE Performance with smooth, quiet stopping power, ultra-low dust *12 pads per set Ceramic

Duralast Gold/Brake Pads - Rear
Price: $54.99
Part Number: DG1419A
Warranty: Limited Lifetime
Notes: *OE Performance with smooth, quiet stopping power, ultra-low dust *8 pads per set Ceramic


//MT

what advantage are the padlets over the regular pads ? seems there would be less surface area of the brake pad ?

WTF is a "padlet" ?? my O'Reilly front ceramic pads cost me $100. Hope i didn't get ripped.

Padlets are individual pads (per piston) instead single pad per caliper side, 6 padlets per caliper front, 4 per rear on a Grandsport.

padlets are around $55, and are 4 small pads on each rotor instead of the two larger pads you had installed.
I don't know what the padlet advantages are that's why I asked.
I know a lot of vette owners are installing them when they change out their brake pads.

I'm a long way from needing brakes as I only have 10,000 miles on my car, but I try to learn as much as I can.

Brakebest Select Ceramic padlets
 

I saw this thread a few months ago after I bought my first vette, a 2013 GS 6-sp manual with 12k miles. I quickly learned the dust from the OEM pads was completely unacceptable. Not to mention it looked like the rotors were starting to get ate to boot. Literally, 20 miles after cleaning the front wheels, they were covered again, spokes, barrels, dust stuck in tire dressing, down the side of the car - a complete disaster. Took about twice as long for the rears to "dust up" compared to the fronts, but still unacceptable in my mind for my "weekend fair weather, me and the Mrs. cruiser car". :cool:

So I went down to my local O'Reilly's, given what I had read here earlier, and ordered the Brakebest Select Ceramics(made by Bosch). They "appear" to be a very high quality product. Installed them about 500 miles ago. Dust is darned near zero. No noise of any kind so far, and even the rotors are starting to take on a smoother, more even coloration. Whereas before there was this streaking pattern thing going on, following the orientation of the cross-drilled holes.
I don't track my car(never will), but as far as I can tell there is no degradation to braking performance. Pedal is still quite firm, initial bite is essentially the same as far as I can tell, pedal modulation about the same. I can't differentiate these from the OEM's, except my wheels, the fender wells and down the side of the car behind the tires is not covered with brake dust all the time anymore. Highly recommended, under the conditions that I drive this car.

I'm not sure if there are any advantages or disadvantages with the padlets vs one-piece. I went with padlets since that type was on the car.

//MT

In theory, individual padlets allow for improved material contact and provide less heat transfer from the pads to the caliper pistons.

How quantifiable these improvements would be is a discussion topic unto its own.

Grand Sports and Z06's have "padlets". For one thing, the padlet/caliper design facilitates being able to more quickly and easily replace the pads from perhaps a street pad to a track pad and back... for the weekend warriors who drive their car to the track, race it, then drive it back home. Because the calipers Do Not have to be removed to replace the padlets in this design.

You cannot install one piece pads on the padlet calipers, unless one of two conditions are met:

1. the one piece pads you purchase have holes in the backing plates "and" the pad material for the padlet/caliper guide pins to go thru, or
2. you take out the padlet/caliper guide pins and leave them out, when you install one piece pads. This means there would be four empty holes visible in the front outside brake calipers - which would look strange at the least.

whether or not there is a performance advantage to the padlet design on the GS' and Z06, I do not know. I suppose that the padlet design having more exposed edges might be able to dissipate heat and evacuate generated pad/rotor dust better. But I don't really know. One would think that there must be some performance advantage to the design, why else would GM put it on the GS and Z06 models and not the base? If you google this, you will find "weeks" worth of reading and discussion on this topic. All I ever saw was "opinions" - I couldn't find any objective facts or test results presented. If some exist, I'd like to read it myself.

Carbotech makes one piece pads for the GS and Z06, that have the holes in the backing plates and brake compound material. I believe Hawk and others do as well.

Original Carbotech press release for the 1 piece.

We have finished our redesign of our C6 Z06 One Piece pad for the front and rear stock calipers (PBR Calipers). We were the first to release the padlets almost four years ago, and then we were the first to release the One Piece over a year ago. That design that we worked with GM on wasn't perfect. That's the same design you see other companies using now.

We set out to redesign the new One Piece all on our own. We wanted to make sure it was perfect and even more user friendly. This new design will drop right into the caliper and you don't have to take out the caliper pins or spring clips. The spring clips are critical in keeping the brake pad square to the rotor surface and ensuring that the pads slide smoothly along the pins. The spring clips also assist in reducing the noise inside the caliper.

This new one piece will make changing pads a lot faster and easier. The newly designed Carbotech One Piece will give longer pad life and a little more bite as well. We are molding the new One Piece pad just like we do with all the C6, C5, and C4 brake pads.

We are also using industry leading NRS technology. If you're not familiar with NRS technology it gives molded pads up to 8 times stronger sheer strength vs. conventional molded brake pads and riveted pads. NRS technology also helps in reducing noise and vibration of the brake pad inside the caliper as well as aiding in longer wearing pads. We use NRS technology on all C6 & C5 front and rear brake pads.

Here is a link to explain further what NRS technology is exactly: http://www.nrsbrakes.com

>> the one piece pads you purchase have holes in the backing plates "and" the pad material for the padlet/caliper guide pins to go thru, or
you take out the padlet/caliper guide pins and leave them out, when you install one piece pads. This means there would be four empty holes visible in the front outside brake calipers - which would look strange at the least.<<

They have plugs for the threaded holes in the calipers, you would never know the difference looks wise.

Mark

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I didn't know they made one piece for the six piston calipers ???

For years now Carbotech was the first.