Brakes. Rotors And Pads

[schnid21]

Hi everyone. I have done a lot of searching on this site and have not found a definite answer onmy question.

 

I need to replace all the brakes on my truck. Pads and rotors. As I mentioned I did a lot of searching and it seems the site favourite for brake pads is carquest blue ceramic. My question is what about rotors. I also got these quoted at carquest but the guy did not know much about the rotors. I have heard that ceramic pads can be fairly hard on rotors and also have a hard pedal feel when cold. I would hate to spend all this money on brakes only to wreck another set of rotors. If anyone can shed some light on this what rotors I should get? Should I just stick with metallic pads. Any information people have would be appreciated. Also, I know there Is a guy on this site that works for carquest do you have any recomendations on rotors that carquest sells or any customer feedback on the ceramic blue pads used with your standard rotors.

 

Thanks for the help

 

jason

[2COR517]

My recommendations, based on my personal experience. Get the best NAPA rotors/drums you can. For pads/shoes use medium-low to low grade. I get the best feel and performance. The cheap linings will not wear out your rotors, as you mentioned before. And replacing the linings is very fast. If you're a real cheapskate, get your linings from Autozone. You can get the cheapest lifetime warranty ones.

 

Remember, it's a pickup truck. Not a Cup car, or Semi........

 

The biggest downside is that the cheap pads will likely make a mess of your rims. For the guys that wash their truck every lunch break, no big deal. And for the guys that never wash their truck, like me, no big deal.

[Spurshot]

Jason,

I was still under the impression that all the rotors, no matter the mfr, are still just cast iron. I'm interested as you to find out what others have learned on rotors.

 

Just a little history on GM truck brakes: 1998 and prior trucks were notorious for wearing out brakes quickly when used normally or in heavy uses. My 2 friend's 96 2500s went thru them every 22-25K miles. My 98 was the same. I bought a 99 2500 GMT800 and the brake pads had increased in size a lot. The factory pad material obviously changed too. They went 150,000 miles and still had plenty of material until I changed them due to heat cracks. Rotors were still fine, didn't even turn them. I put factory pads back on. I don't know what they did to the 1500 brakes when the GMT800 body came in, but I do recall a 1500 along side my truck at a camper store and looking at the brakes. They were obviously smaller of course.

[schnid21]

Something to consider the whole buying cheap pads. I do use my truck for towing in the winter though, so I would like to have some piece of mind that I have decent brakes underneath it.

 

Just as an FYI Spurshot, my trucks and 2002 and made it 80000km. The rotors pretty much are falling to pieces. The faces of the rotors are so rusted and pitted its rediculous. I have never actually seen brakes this bad before.

 

Hopefully I can figure out soon which way I am going to go. In the past I have always just used Monroe Premium pads and rotors from Canadian Tire. They always work, but do leave quite a mess on the rims and rubber.

 

Thanks for the info so far.

 

Jason

[duceyduce]

Honestly, I'd go posi-quiet ceramic pads and just a standard economic rotor. Unless you're doing driving that requires you have a rotor with a faster cool-down time (like slotted cross-drilled, etc.)

 

Typically, whenever I sell a brake job and people want "good pads", that's the pad I will put on there. Price wise, it's not all too much more than standard pads, but it's got a 15ft stopping difference than most pads (which may not seem like much, but when you consider how close you've come to hitting something at some point, 15ft is a big deal). At that, I will put eco-rotors on there because there's no need to go over kill on a standard daily driver type vehicle.

 

So unless you do performance type driving, I have found Posi Quiet Ceramics and any standard economy rotor to be immaculate on the vehicle and on the pocket. Also, these pads have very limited brake dust so your wheels stay nice and clean. Brake dust makes my wheels look horrible, so I put these on after a few other trials and errors. I have been very happy with the result, but recently upgraded to a big brake package. If I could, I would still have these on my whip.

 

[Edit: Grammar]

[07Graystone]

FWIW, I have had great results with Wagner Thermo-Quiet Ceramic pads and Wagner (made in USA) rotors on another application. Front pads last 75-80k mi on my last two 1500's and I have never replaced rear shoes after reaching as much as 140k mi.