I am sure this has been discussed before, but I am pretty new to this stuff so I am going to ask anyway...what is the best brake pads for the money? I have a stock 01 coupe, do not take it to the track or autocross, just a daily driver. Any recomendations?

 

Once they break in, the GM ceramics have no noise and very little brake dust. I have them with slotted and cross drilled rotors and love the set up. You can also do a search in this forum for "brakes" or "brake pads" and it will bring up more information than you can use........

 

I run Hawks and love 'em

 

I had the gm ceramic pads, the were ok, I noticed some wearing off of the coating on the rotors. They were low dust. I put on a set of Hawks street pads, they seemed to wear off the rotor coating less, and seems like hardly any dust, deffinatly less than the ceramics.

 

I have Raybestos Quiet Stops.

 

I see FireCop and I are on the same page. I have a 2003 with under 5000 miles. I got it a month ago and the last 1600 miles have been mine. It obviously still has factory pads on it and once in a while the right rear squeals when I stop. That just is not kool in a Vette!

I think that they should be "broke in"... what are the thoughts of the Forum? Defective pad? Just normal?

Thanks

 

perfect

 

It depends on your use and what you want, road course, auto cross, street, less dust, less noise.

 

I have 16000 on my 04 pads. no noise. Never did anything special to break in. Pull pads off and put some anti squeal compound on their backs. The squeal is coming from where the caliper piston contacts the pads metal backing.

 

I just installed the Hawk HPS pads - too early to tell.

 

The best brake pads are AC Delco Ceramics. They are the best.

 

I decided to go with the AC Delco Ceramics, but the first words out of the Service Consultants mouth were " you know these will squeak" I am now in a wait and see mode. What is your experience.

 

I went from Hawks to these AC Delco's and about 3,000 miles later, I have no sqeaks and VERY little dust. Using eradispeed crossdrilled/slotted rotors and haven't noticed any problems at all.

 

Semi-metallic brake pad noises can be normal under hot, cold, or wet climate conditions. Also, overheating pads can cause noises(high pitched vibrations!)

 

I am running a set of Hawk HPS pads and they seem to be holding up very well.

 

I'd say normal, especially if you tend to do a fair amount of "light" braking. You might try this ...

With all due CAUTION .... back the car at about 10 MPH and brake hard (75 percent of "lock up" pressure) to a stop. As you most likely know, you're braking distance will be LONG as compared to braking going forward, so do this carefully !! One stop like that should knock any glaze off the pad and eliminate the squeal for a while.

If all your driving is street driving, the AC/Delco ceramics are a very good pad .. don't squeal, low dust, good performance.

If, for the same brake pedal input, you want a little more stopping power, the current pads you have are also (as you know) excellent. They will create more dust than the Ceramics, and do have more of a tendancy to squeal.

Each step up from there (AC/Delco C5 Z06 pads, Hawk HP pads, Hawk HP Plus pads ... etc.) gives you more braking torque for a given pedal input, but the trade offs are more and more dust, more squealing (especially when rotors are cool) and eventually very aggressive race pads give POORER performance with cold/cool rotors as they are designed to work better at higher temperature ranges than street driving usually generates.

If I ever make it down to your area, we'll definately meet for a beer, and if you take the Vette to an EVOC, don't use the ceramics .... maybe the Hawks HP Plus would be a good choice for that !!!!