Brake Upgrade

[CX-5um]

Hmm I almost think that the issues Unob has with brakes is related to his driving and very short commute. My understanding is he drives aggressively to work that is 2 miles away (before he moved to his new home). That means, spirited acceleration then aggressive braking. Maybe he keeps his foot on the brakes while waiting at the light? If I'm not mistaken, this could cause issues with deposits especially after a hard stop when the brakes are really hot. Just a guess. After a hard stop, I usually try to avoid keeping my foot on the brakes while waiting.

I'd be interested in seeing the condition of his rotors. My rotors on my Mazda6 fronts had physical grooves you could feel with your hands. A bit of pulsating could be felt in hard freeway braking. I believe its because of a combination of improper bed-in of new pads and the fact that I drive the thing HARD. From day 1 off the dealer lot I drove my Mazda6 like I stole it. Braked like it I hated it. (Lots of fun in the process!!)

Essentially these OEM street pads weren't "eased" into and driving hard from the get go contributing to uneven deposits. Starting from scratch with my new rotors and pads...I learned my lesson and did the proper bed-in process. Now I can drive it hard and stop hard with no pulsing. In hindsight I should've just resurfaced my oem rotors.

 

[GJ-Molestor]

I'd be interested in seeing the condition of his rotors. My rotors on my Mazda6 fronts had physical grooves you could feel with your hands. A bit of pulsating could be felt in hard freeway braking. I believe its because of a combination of improper bed-in of new pads and the fact that I drive the thing HARD. From day 1 off the dealer lot I drove my Mazda6 like I stole it. Braked like it I hated it. (Lots of fun in the process!!)

Essentially these OEM street pads weren't "eased" into and driving hard from the get go contributing to uneven deposits. Starting from scratch with my new rotors and pads...I learned my lesson and did the proper bed-in process. Now I can drive it hard and stop hard with no pulsing. In hindsight I should've just resurfaced my oem rotors.

Youre brakes are like that because you treat the car like s*** period. If you resurfaced then and stopped braking aggressively they would look fine

 

[Unobtanium]

According to unobtanium and his Original 2 mile Mazda-obliterating commute, yes.

Not really. I said it was a result of poor install, NOTHING you do to a car on the street can possibly warp the brakes if the system is functioning well. Rotors get literally red-hot and don't warp. You CAN leave pad deposits at those temps though, but those don't come and go as the rotor cools and heats like the judder I have.

 

[Anchorman]

Not really. I said it was a result of poor install, NOTHING you do to a car on the street can possibly warp the brakes if the system is functioning well. Rotors get literally red-hot and don't warp. You CAN leave pad deposits at those temps though, but those don't come and go as the rotor cools and heats like the judder I have.

Yes they can do that. Discs can judder at various temps due to depositing and often do. It's not always about run out, you can get a stick-slip situation.

 

[Unobtanium]

Yes they can do that. Discs can judder at various temps due to depositing and often do. It's not always about run out, you can get a stick-slip situation.

How hot do you have to get stock pads to get deposits on modern systems?

 

[Anchorman]

How hot do you have to get stock pads to get deposits on modern systems?

Not very hot at all. It depends on how much abrasive is in the original pad. Toyota have changes from a Japanese material to Textar T3043 on the European RAV4s and have completely eliminated judder problems but the same platform uses something different in the US. I think it is one of the Japanese ADVECS materials. I get my pads very hot every day going to work in my 2017 and there is no signs of judder. I had the 2016.5 for 14000 before it got stolen and although I wore half the material away in that mileage through heat, they were just as good. I cleaned the calipers up and painted them at about 12000 miles and you can see how good the discs are. Later today I will be changing the pads on my daughter’s Yaris which judder through depositing and I’ll show you the difference.

You can just about see how good the discs are here and note I’ve not used any abrasive to clean up the disc.

The original pads are made by the company I worked for - Ferodo

....and here I’ve compared them in thickness to the Pagid pads I’d bought as replacements but was not ready to use - why change them when they have plenty of life. I reckon I could have got another 12000 at least but I treat changing a set of pads as simple as dipping the oil - I’ve done a few!

This is the grease I use

.....applied to the shims, it will not melt at the temperatures you get on a CX-5

Very easy to fit the pads into the spring clips. Just push them in at the back and swivel them in at the front

And then the assembled serviced calliper.

Incidentally, if anyone like me has a set of spare pads from the older 2016.5 model, I did try them in the 2017 to see if they fit while I was fitting the mudflaps and they do despite the part number change. I never thought to check if they were still Ferodo but I will when I put the winter wheels on in November. This is them!

 

[Unobtanium]

Not very hot at all. It depends on how much abrasive is in the original pad. Toyota have changes from a Japanese material to Textar T3043 on the European RAV4s and have completely eliminated judder problems but the same platform uses something different in the US. I think it is one of the Japanese ADVECS materials. I get my pads very hot every day going to work in my 2017 and there is no signs of judder. I had the 2016.5 for 14000 before it got stolen and although I wore half the material away in that mileage through heat, they were just as good. I cleaned the calipers up and painted them at about 12000 miles and you can see how good the discs are. Later today I will be changing the pads on my daughter’s Yaris which judder through depositing and I’ll show you the difference.

You can just about see how good the discs are here and note I’ve not used any abrasive to clean up the disc.

The original pads are made by the company I worked for - Ferodo

....and here I’ve compared them in thickness to the Pagid pads I’d bought as replacements but was not ready to use - why change them when they have plenty of life. I reckon I could have got another 12000 at least but I treat changing a set of pads as simple as dipping the oil - I’ve done a few!

This is the grease I use

.....applied to the shims, it will not melt at the temperatures you get on a CX-5

Very easy to fit the pads into the spring clips. Just push them in at the back and swivel them in at the front

And then the assembled serviced calliper.

Incidentally, if anyone like me has a set of spare pads from the older 2016.5 model, I did try them in the 2017 to see if they fit while I was fitting the mudflaps and they do despite the part number change. I never thought to check if they were still Ferodo but I will when I put the winter wheels on in November. This is them!

By the end of my commute, I have judder. Should I be doing something in the middle of the commute to fix it?

 

[Anchorman]

By the end of my commute, I have judder. Should I be doing something in the middle of the commute to fix it?

I don't know what pads or discs you are running with or what has been done to your car if anything. I took some photos from my daughter's car yesterday which I'll post up later. If you do get judder from DTV and or depositing, then the friction material will at times be running on patches of clean cast iron and then traces of transferred friction material so it behaves very differently. This stick/slip behaviour manifests itself as judder back through the steering wheel if it is mainly transfer or it can be felt through the brake pedal if it has progressed to DTV (worn the disc thick and thin). It can come and go as the temperature increases and sometimes if you get them really hot you can go through it.

 

[Unobtanium]

I don't know what pads or discs you are running with or what has been done to your car if anything. I took some photos from my daughter's car yesterday which I'll post up later. If you do get judder from DTV and or depositing, then the friction material will at times be running on patches of clean cast iron and then traces of transferred friction material so it behaves very differently. This stick/slip behaviour manifests itself as judder back through the steering wheel if it is mainly transfer or it can be felt through the brake pedal if it has progressed to DTV (worn the disc thick and thin). It can come and go as the temperature increases and sometimes if you get them really hot you can go through it.

100% OEM with 65k miles.
Smooth as glass until driven through a few stop and go or corner situations involving braking. Mainly shakes the car and wheel, not pedal.

 

[Anchorman]

Not a CX-5 but the same applies. My daughters Toyota was suffering badly from judder. This was quite high frequency that got worse as the brakes warmed up although I would say that she never drives it hard enough to see what happened at high temperature. I’ve talked about DTV (disc thickness variation) and also “depositing” which occurs when some of the friction material is transferred or smeared onto the disc. This is never done uniformly so the resultant “stick/slip” manifests itself as judder. In really bad cases, the amount of disc ware varies around the disc resulting in thick/thin patches which are not consistent on either side - DTV.

Lets start simple. Look at the colour difference between a new disc and the discs that came off the car.

The discs are nothing special (plain old grey cast iron) but you can see the staining which is not so obvious when you look through the wheel unless you are familiar with what to look for. This phenomena is well recognised in the friction material industry and forms one of the many tests that manufacturers look out for. Most friction material is capable of suffering from it but you usually find that cheaper aftermarket materials are the worst. Japanese pad manufacturers were pedantic about black dust and low wear and their attempts to develop materials that avoided these issues often led to very bad depositing. In Europe, Ferodo were the first to develop DTV and depositing out of friction material by increasing the abrasive content in order to effectively grind the disc clean. It also had the effect of machining the disc true.

In this close up of the Pagid branded pad, you can see that not all is so obvious with friction material and the code T1566 refers to a Textar material which is part of the same group - TMD (Textar, Mintex, Don)

The sticker on the box gives a little better clue to this

This close up of the discs shows the new disc supplied by a British distributor called Apec but you’ll have many suppliers there. Most quality disc suppliers here are supplying either painted disc or chemically treated discs. Pagid discs are dipped in a substance called Dacramet which is silver in colour. They are more expensive than Apec but a better disc in terms of coating and finish - you can see these Apec discs are turned but the Pagid discs are machined. For the little Toyota, these are fine. Now looking at the old disc, you can see scoring and those little bright marks that look like tiny shooting stars are quite normal and are the result of water splashing on the disc. It quenches the disc and causes tiny flecks to spall off and spread in that way. The German pad makers call them “fish” as they are fish shaped and they sometimes embed themselves into the pad surface. More of interest is the darkened patches which are the depositing and the root cause of the judder. If it isn’t bad, you can sometimes get rid of it by driving the car very hard then cooling then do it again once or twice more. However, if any uneven disc wear has taken place, the only cure would be machining or renewal. I don’t bother machining as the cost of new discs is so low these days and fitting them is dead easy on most cars.

A couple of other items of interest. These audible wear indicators are favoured by the Japanese manufacturers. Electronic ones are good but capable of being a proper pain when they play up so this little piece of bent spring steel will squeal like a piglet when it touches the disc thus alerting the driver to get them looked at. They normally go on the inner side and at the top.

The best way of pushing the piston back is with a G clamp. Never top up the fluid reservoir when the pads are partially worn. There is enough fluid to cater for the displacement of all four brakes and then when you renew the pads the fluid won’t overflow out of the master cylinder. If you change the fluid when the pads are part worn, make a mental note of the fluid level and top it back to the same approximate place.

In this photo, you can see how using a hollow piston keeps the fluid well away from the heat of braking. Most modern calipers do not pass fluid over the calliper bridge as they are of the none reactive type where the action of the single piston pushes the outer pad back in an equal and opposite force. This has virtually done away with the old problem of boiling brake fluid in heavy duty operation.

 

[Anchorman]

100% OEM with 65k miles.
Smooth as glass until driven through a few stop and go or corner situations involving braking. Mainly shakes the car and wheel, not pedal.

New pads and discs will cure it. You might like to try some German pads, can you get Textar or Pagid easily enough? If you get Ferodo, I’m not sure where they would be sourced for your market. If somebody can get me the markings off the back of an OEM pad I might be able to find out more as Ferodo UK is in the same town as I live in and the global product manager comes to my house most days.

 

[mazdadude]

ANCHORMAN!---Thank you for taking the time to write that and share your valuable expertise.

So the stock Mazda pad appears to be a FERODO "FF", and the PAGID is a "GF". Are there any "GG" pads available?

 

[Anchorman]

I think EBC do one but whether you can get it in the shape for a CX-5 I wouldn’t know. You have to be careful going very high in friction as they car can become very unstable and then you might get noise and vibration etc.

 

[mazdadude]

You have to be careful going very high in friction as they car can become very unstable and then you might get noise and vibration etc.

Very good point!

 

[Unobtanium]

New pads and discs will cure it. You might like to try some German pads, can you get Textar or Pagid easily enough? If you get Ferodo, I’m not sure where they would be sourced for your market. If somebody can get me the markings off the back of an OEM pad I might be able to find out more as Ferodo UK is in the same town as I live in and the global product manager comes to my house most days.

I'm not sure, and would have to Google. I will look into it. Seems like you're saying Japanese pads are the problem. Makes sense.

 

[finch204]

Anchorman I'm a little surprised you didn't know Mazda uses Ferodo as OEM brake pads. On my Speed3, I decided to stick with the Ferodo OEM brake pads because of the very good bite they provide, even when the brakes are cold. There are a lot of aftermarket brake pads available for the Speed3, but none can match the bite of the OEM pads when cold.

 

[CX-5um]

Installed Power Stop Semi-Metallics front and rear this weekend on the 2013 CX-5 with stock rotors intact @75k miles. Solid performance after bedding process. Some notes:

Pad Kit came with new hardware. All 8 clips fit with the exception of 1. I essentially cleaned and reused 1 clip.

Applied synthetic grease to all metal-to-metal friction areas. No sound and smooth operation.

Added synthetic grease to all slider pins. I noticed some sliders weren't moving as well until after re-lubing.

17-inch wheels are much much lighter than the 19's. Easier on your back?

I ensured to spray and wipe the rotors down last (with brake cleaner )as to remove any grease and debris.

Rear OEM pads did not have that "slot" in the middle of it. Must be an early model thing? The Power Stops had slots on each pad.

OEM front pads measured aprox 5mm pad left and the rears had aprox 6mm pad left @75k miles. The Power Stops appeared to have closer to 9-10mm of pad new.

I lifted via the single rear jack point (near the exhaust pipe) and the single front jack point under the engine bay. Used jack stands at traditional corner sections as secondary backup.

Torqued bolts to 25lbs, wheel lugs to 92lbs.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B67LwQTJqYK0Zjd6aVB6TFpYLWM

 

[Anchorman]

Anchorman I'm a little surprised you didn't know Mazda uses Ferodo as OEM brake pads. On my Speed3, I decided to stick with the Ferodo OEM brake pads because of the very good bite they provide, even when the brakes are cold. There are a lot of aftermarket brake pads available for the Speed3, but none can match the bite of the OEM pads when cold.

I know they use them here because I’ve photographed them above. What I didn’t know was if they use them in the USA too. They often use different materials for different markets as you have your FMVSS requirements and ours are all Euro EEC. It might be that one pad fits all - if so, well done Ferodo.

 

[Anchorman]

Rear OEM pads did not have that "slot" in the middle of it. Must be an early model thing? The Power Stops had slots on each pad.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B67LwQTJqYK0Zjd6aVB6TFpYLWM

The groove allows the pad to flex slightly without either cracking or popping off the backplate. There is actually a lot of technology in the groove if they are moulded in rather than cut. Moulding increases the strength and reduces the chance of the pad groove becoming clogged by its own wear debris.

 

[GJ-Molestor]

Update.

Just peeked through my wheels with roughly 55k miles on the clock.

Front brakes look good, roughly 10-15k KM left on those.

Rear brakes will need to be replaced rather soon. I suspect this happens to owners in snowbelt areas.