Just a suggestion RE: stock brake wear/dust

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Working for an Infiniti dealership doesn't mean I'm not affected by the frigg'n excessive OEM brake wear and dust on my 04' G35X. Being as **** as I am about the appearance and performance of my car, I wasn't about to wait for warranty replacement of my stock pads and rotors. The primary reason, as most know, for the premature destruction of the 'POS' OME stuff is the stock pads. Even though it was on my dime and time, I replaced the stock pads the first week I had the car. I used Stillen Metal Matrix Fr. and Rr. pads..............WHAT A GD DIFFERENCE! There is, for the most part, a TOTAL absence of brake dust AND a beautiful even wear to the rotors with NO sacrificing of stopping power! The only thing I notice is a little less 'grabbyness' in under 5mph braking....woohoo. So, for a little over a $100 bucks I saved 10-12,000 miles of irritation/being pissed off, and about an hour of my time. Peace of mind for a $100+ buck....step up Squeeky...LOL

 

It would be interesting to actually measure the stopping distances with after market pads [on the same car with same tires] doubt they are more than 7-8 feet longer in 60-zero tests. At 60 mph a tenth of a second faster ramp up is 8.8 feet......after you apply 40 pounds to the brake pedal.
The soft oem pads initial high friction bite [and high wear rate] is where all the superior distances come from.......primarily to beat BMW in magazine test [but they dust a lot also].

A "brake pad dusting war" who can supply the fastest wearing quickest build up to friction pads...["my pads only lasted 5,000 miles they are great" is never heard........just shows Americans reallly don't want the best brakes with all their downsides...........just like tires as long as they don't cost money or wear out fast.

I've been using Semi metallic "Axxis and Stillen" copies for 10 years on the front of my Q and they only lengthened stopping distances by less than 10 feet measured them over the years at track events.

The problem is the ABS software [slip ratio] is programmed for oem pads and tires, change either one and the ABS may engage prematurely increasing the stopping distances. The only way to know is to data log the ABS pulses 20 times with each type of pad and average.

Do like I do only wash the car once per month [it's 15 years old].......substance over superficials........brake dust on wheels should be a badge of honor.

 

It wasn't purely a matter of bending my *** over to clean off brake dust. It was also the premature demise/destruction of the rotors as well. The witnessing of car after car comming into our service dept. with as little as 7,000 miles needing full replacement of not only front, but rear rotors as well, was enough to spur me into doing some extensive research in an effort to find pads that could do the double duty of funtion vs. wear. I even have a wife that's not only beautiful, but cerebral as well. Now granted, I've done no slide rule or controled testing....BUT....over twenty years of professional road, track, and strip racing gives me that seat of the pants indicator of performance that allows me to make the more "blue collar"/"American", if you will, type judgement of what will slow my car best while slamming the frigg'n door on a Beemer, or when my wife pulls into a parking spot at Macy's. Yeesch. Much love, JBX

 

One more thing.......is having food in between your teeth "Badge" of being well feed, or just being lazy with poor personal hygene habits? :-) JBX

 

I don't understand the mentality here. It seems to me like this whole thing comes down to lack of some driving skills:

1) Brake wear: the reason people's brakes are wearing out at 7,000 miles (just an example I read) is that they overuse their brakes. These are the people who don't understand the concept of altering your speed using the throttle, or anticipating a red light or stopped traffic and slowing down early, or what a waste of time and brake wear to weave in and out of traffic and tailgate people. I'm a very very spirited driver, and I still have 50% life on my 16,000 mile old brakes. Considering I've had other cars with up to 80,000 miles on the original brakes, I consider my G's rate of brake wear high, but I don't complain because of the performance.
2) Brake dust: it's the same people in #1 above who overuse their brakes who complain of brake dust. The reason for all the dust is the overuse of the brakes!
3) Brake performance: the upshot is the same people who lack some driving skills and overuse their brakes and then complain about wear and dust, are the first ones to buy a high performance vehicle, then swap out the pads for lower dusting, lower performing, longer wearing ones. And as Q45Tech pointed out, you've now risked engaging your ABS early which actually increases your stopping distance (versus threshold braking for example).
4) Everything I said above also holds true for those who buy an off-brand tire to save money at the expense of safety and performance which is what our cars are all about.

Tires and brakes are the #1 most important performance and safety gear we have . . . it's called "grip".

I'm sorry, I don't get it. These people can't have their cake and eat it too. If a low maintenance car is what they want, then don't buy a G.

P.S. I wonder how many folks above took the money and time they saved on brakes and tires and invested it in advanced driver instruction such as Skip Barber, Panoz, etc.?

 

So what you're saying is 1.) that by [U]upgrading my pads I've compromised my stopping power because the're yielding less dust.2) Anybody needing new pads and rotors ( including Motor Trend and Car and Driver "one year later test reviews") can't drive. 3.) Hmmm. driving skills....... put asside my 1,750,000 miles in the seat of a 89' long 10 car auto transport (mind you...accident and ticket free there Speed Racer) Did Skip Barber/Saab School back in 88' up in Louden NH, I raced Pro Endurance Road Racing for Kawasaki's Factory Team in 74',75', and76' (as in 160mph on the banks at Daytona and straights at Laguna Seca), Let's see....oh yeah....Was the #3 ranked Nat'l pro stk drag bike in 87' (8.1 1/4mi) Naaahhhh I'm cluless there Slappy. Tell ya the truth....I've probably backed up further than you've driven forward in all your "spirited" glory. 4) You're probably right about down shifting our automatic transmissions in anticipation of red lights and the such.....oh wait a minute...I forgot I live in the most densely populated state in the US and at the Jersey shore no less....and ther's a light every 100 yards with three NY drivers in between ....nevermind.5.) and about my ABS working properly ...I don't know, but it seemed to be fine in all the snow we just had ...How bout' you down there in Fla....were you able to handle all that inclement sunshine allright Jeeves??????

 

I will admit that i might have my fair share more of brake dust then others. Why? Cause I drive the car the way it's supposed to driven. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not drifting every corner or launching at every stop, but I do enjoy every long and short curves I come to. My car has 6000 miles on it and it's 4 months old, not bad, but my rears tires are showing the mileage fun mileage that is.
Brakes, they are meant to stop you. But they don't have to throw alot of dust out to do it. Also, you shouldn't have to sacrifice stopping distance for less brake wear. Are the stock pads good, hell yes. Are they the best, No.
If they were they woudn't make aftermarket pads.
If there is a better pad out there that will give you similair stopping distances and provide less brake dust, and possibly give me a few more miles. Then I'm all over it.
Of course, I am still under my 3 year/36k mile brake warranty, and I am going to take full advantage of it. After that I will be looking at aftermarkt rotors and pads, possibly more.


JBX, how many miles have you put on your car since the new brakes were put on?
Has the performance of the brakes stayed the same?



Thanks
mike

 

Relax Jersey! I live in the "yankee south" with all you northerners so I understand the attitude, but you need to go back and read my post. My post was NOT personal. Never did I attack your driving skills or anything else. In fact, never did I even address you by name. Never did I say what a "great" driver I was either. I also never said that you or people who change their pads to non-OEM cannot drive; what I said was they lack "some" driving skills.

I was just exposing the facts surrounding high levels of brake dust and wear that come with this type of performance vehicle, and that consumer attempts to counter this for convenience makes no sense to me.

For example, in your own post, you admit that you lost the "grabbyness" under 5mph. This may or may not be a big deal, but it certainly does indicate a change in the dynamics of your braking system; and Q45Tech is right when he says that changing pads alter the way the car was designed. Consider this: you can spend $5,000 on a 4 wheel big brake system and gain zero or close to zero decrease in stopping distance until you engage in many repeated high stress braking maneuvers such as with autocross or tracking where the heat build up can only be handled by a big brake system; thus our "POS" brake pads are actually pretty darn good. I have to believe (and maybe I'm wrong) that using non-OEM brake pads that produce less dust and last longer cannot have the same performance as the softer, shorter life, high dusting OEM pads.

Bottom line, there has to be some reason why some people change pads (on any car) at sooner intervals than others. True, some of this can be attributed to highway vs. city driving, but not when you're comparing 7,000 miles with zero pad left to 16,000 miles with 50% left. Again, brake dust is directly related to brake usage, so when people say they have these high dust levels it tells me they use their brakes more than say I do.

Instead of giving me your driving resume and calling me names, why don't you just address the issues I put forth? As we locals say "If you love New York(New Jersey too), take I-95 North".

Regards,

Miami

P.S. Oh yes New Jersey . . . and I am looking forward to my 78 degree sunshine filled weekend with my son on the boat far away from the NY/NJ crowd!

 

I just changed the pads.....the pads....the pads. My original posting was to make others aware that I found a more than reasonable substitute for the great braking pads the came on the car...with out the mess and destruction. (Infiniti warranties these pads for more reasons than they're messy). I drive like an A **** and every red light, winding road, 3 and 5 series beemer,and NY car with spinners is subject to my abuse, so my braking needs are more than that of the average, more mature (as in adult) driver. Ya gotta understand, also, that at the Jersey Shore NY drivers are looked upon as a blind date with an open sore. Actually that's anywhere in NJ. My "driving resume'" was included only as a point of reference validating me as a reliable source of input. Name calling....come on Sparky...ya can't be serious. A wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse. LOL

 

OK, I guess we're even. LOL

 

While there are many good aftermarket pads out there, I've run the Metal Matrix pads on my 03 Sedan since July of 2003. A G35Driver search will show very similar comments to your experience & observations. So far there's no distinguishable wear (15k miles) and, according to my unscientific test loop, these pads provide improved stopping power when hot.

 

I'll be in the market for less messy pads pretty soon and will keep these in mind, thanks for the report!

 

We see it all the time on used [2nd-3rd owner] Infiniti. The first to go are the brake pads, people go for the $99 friction reline, then Chinese $35 rotors, then the 4 for $169 PEEP Boys tires. Then the cheap coolant and 99 cent brake fluid......from Azone.

At GaTech we call them Rambling Wrecks.

A danger to humanity on the road.......but they are driving an Infiniti.

Will be a couple more years before we see many G in that shape hopefully.

On old Q45 specific boards we find it hard to persuade members that a $120 15" [Michelin Pilot H4] tire is necessary.........they like the $49 Kumho and heaven forbid any more than $70 [Tirerack prices].

I can't wait till the G get out of warranty.

Billy Bob's Asian Emporium will have them stacked up like cord wood.

 

For years I primarily drove my Q on the highway with little or no commute traffic.
Metal Masters were great got 30,000 miles per set and fantastic on those Summer mountain drives.

THEN suddenly my life changed and daily stop and go nightmarish traffic in 10,000 miles [<4 months] the NEW MM were toast and so were the drilled Power Stop rotors.
My mpg went from a 14 year average [same 273,000 mile Q] 19.6 to 15.3 mpg.....lots of accelerating and braking per mile.....mostly idling.

Just changed to special [found them hiding in the junk pile from 6 years ago] -U93 dusty oem option pads for [constant braking female real estate agents] as we use say. That excellant HOT feeling is gone but the initial bite is back in cold weather........something I had learned to live without with MM.

There is no optimum pad for every driver and every driving situation......only compromises to fit special circumstances. What we need are Winter and Summer pads swapped just like Tires.

I was blown away at how fast the MM pads wore compared to the last 3 sets with just 5 times the applications per mile.

I am in process of connecting a counter timer to the brake switch to actually count the applications per mile driven.......obviously no way to easily count the time nor pedal pressure......sensors and dedicated computer.

Actually the brake pad wear tells you.

 

Don't know how to respond to your experience.......Stop and go traffic in NJ is a way of life (and so is how fast you can go in between..lol) I've been monitoring my brake wear, best as I can, by dust accumulation (none ) and pad wear (nothing note worthy in over two thousand very hard miles). Rotors are mirror like with no wear or grooving with the Metal Matrix pads..........Oh well