I put a new set of StopTech brake pads and rotors on my GrandSport today and went on a quick run to bed them in.

I get through about three 60-10 MPH braking runs, and about a mile, when I hear an awful growling start in the left front; I pull off shortly afterwards and slowly coax the car into a gas station, though she doesn't want to; there's some obvious brake grab going on.

Wife comes to get me and we get some tools down there to take the wheel and brakes off, and I find this on the inside only of the new rotor:



I don't have a pic of the pad right now, but it had very hard, embedded metallic specs on the pad in places that correspond with the deepest of these grooves (which are very deep, the worst I've seen and I barely drove on it once the sound started). I tried to remove the metal from the pad with my screwdriver but they were stuck there. The caliper springs were not anywhere near the rotor when installed so they weren't dragging.

This isn't my first time changing pads or rotors on any vehicle, it's a fairly simple procedure anyways so there isn't much to screw up. I didn't notice any particular trouble with this rotor or installing the pads/caliper; it got the same 'hit with brake clean, wipe down, install' treatment that the other 3 did.

Anyone have an idea what went wrong here?

 

Ouch. I've had similar damage due to calipers biting into the brake rotor, but that was on bad pads.

 

I have seen this once before on a Dodge Ram... and he installed his pads reversed... Meaning the metal surface was making contact with the rotor.

Can you confirm the pads where not installed reversed?

SPEED SAFE, NICK

 

Can confirm. Obviously I pulled the caliper to get the rotor off, pads were installed, held properly by the pins and springs, and were in the correct direction.

 

Really? WTF?

 

only time I have seen this is when friend not paying attention put one pad on backwards with metal side facing rotor.the first time you apply brakes it will destroy the rotor as in your picture

 

post a picture of the pad...

 

Ironically I used to own a dodge ram and did this exact same thing on the rear. Took about 3 days before it started grinding.

The only other time I've had rotors get trashed this bad is when I took the internet's advice and bought the cheapest, softest pads I could so it would save my rotors (once again, ironically on my dodge). HA! Those pads trashed the rotors something awful. Ever since then it's been Wagner Thermoquiet's and I've never had a brake problem since.

 

Soft new pads would do that? How, if I might ask?

Only time I've seen something like this is back when pads were riveted, got too thin and rivets popped thru. Not even little pebbles (which are rocks) can do that very quickly--but it can do it over a few miles or more. I also guess if you work on brakes long enough, you can reverse the pads and put them on the wrong way.

Need pics of front and back side of pad(s). Does GS have "padlets"?

 

Well, it's the damnedest thing. Someone must have gotten to the car while it was sitting at the gas station and turned that pad inside out so the metal side was against the rotor.

That's certainly the only way that I could've just pulled it apart again and the metal side was against the rotor this time.

I mean, I suppose it's technically possible that the pad was that way last night when I took it off in the cold darkness and I didn't notice, and then I came on here all confident that the pad being backwards couldn't be the problem, but I don't see how likely that is.

So yeah, I need a new rotor and a single pad; not sure I can make the single pad happen, but the rotor will be on its way here soon. Wow I feel dumb.

 

Must be those pesky aliens again. They've attacked me a few times and tossed springs out of my hands to places unknown in my garage. We need some extreme vetting to keep them away....!!

 

Damn jealous mustang owner...

 

Gremlins. Kind of sorta reminds me of the time I accused the wife of moving something because I was 100% positive I had left it in a particular place. Turns out I was wrong, my fault and had to eat crow. I hate the feathers. Just saying that sometimes the mind plays tricks and we remember something different than the reality. It happens.

 

Fessing up on line is the quickest way to be absolved. Good on ya, Charlie Brown!

 

X 2!!!

I was gonna make some joke about "deplorables" in the neighborhood (of which I may be one:). Or, that little bag of (this is not a religious statement) "jesus" pins I was given long ago for what you say when you lose one in the engine bay (cotter pins, which almost no one uses any more). But then, I decided against doing it.

If I havne't done anything like the OP, it's just because I haven't tried.

 

Poltergeists! Might be the same ones who haunt some of my projects, because I have done the same thing!! I have been doing my own brakes for 30 years, but I dropped a padlet backwards into a Grand Sport caliper. Didn't do this much damage, but sure sounded like hell. It is embarrassing, but this is how we learn.

 

Glad you figured out the issue.

As far as buying an entire new set of pads, maybe give the manufacturer a call and see if they can hook you up with a single pad. If it were me, I would tell them the story, be contrite while expressing my own idiocy, and I'll bet they feel sorry for you and send a new one, on the house. It's really a pretty good story.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

 

 

S..t happens....................but I hate when it happens to me.........good on you for coming clean

Clif