What's the best way to do this? New slotted Rotors and Pads (front and rear) being installed and have heard and read many ways to do this. Anyone give me the real "break down" on this. Much appreciated. TIA
I believe it depends on the pad material. I'd contact the manufacturer and ask them. Anything else would be a guess.
myself....generally I usually ride the brakes(medium-hard ) about 100 yards... then let off and let them cool off while still driving ......try not to hit stops signs or lights ...
Seems like we use to do a series of very light stops (about 8 ft/sec2 decels), working your way up to a couple pretty good stops (about 20 ft/sec2). The main thing is to allow time for the brakes to cool between stops. Do about 10 of the light ones, then about 4 heavy ones and you should be good to go after that. K
For the new cars GM recommends three to five 'braking sequences' with moderate pedal pressure from 30-35mph to stop-using caution not to 'heat' up the linings while doing so. I think as long as you don't get them 'hot' any method will work. Once they are glazed however, you are all done.
Yes - but more than that, to off-gas the bonding materials without allowing those same materials to glaze-over the pads and rotors /shoes and drums.
I have never had a problem with this but just make a bunch of stops from 40+/- mph at medium decel at 1 mile intervals. This is what one of the manufacturers does prior to testing. The idea is not to make a whole bunch of light stops or a whole bunch of heavy stops all in a row. You want to heat the pads up enough to get the resins to start working without overheating them and causing resins to accumulate at the braking surface faster than they can burn off (escape).
so would that be why when i put new brakes on the front of my 95' F-350 4X4 the brake got better after about a week of driving? cause i thought they were pretty weak at first but now they stop on a dime. i didnt think that you had to "breakin" new brakes. they never said anyhting about it when i got my AAS in Auto tech.
Eric and Brad are right on. It helps to 'mate' the surfaces together etc... the tech atricle on the post pretty much says it all. As far as the brakes working better after a few days, this is most common when the rotors have not been resurfaced as the new pads are only touching on a relatively small amount of the rotor surface until the 'seat'. I have done brake jobs (really just replacing the pads) on cars where the car hardly stopped the first few times out. I recommend atleast taking a light cut of the rotors if there is enough material each time you replace the pads. It will often help you avoid pulsation in the future as well.
I didn't bother to check the links at the bottom of the page but the info on the front page seems accurate. I didn't really get the feeling of them trying to 'sell' me something from the first page, maybe the link pages are different.
I just take the vehicle out for a ride and break the linings in slowly without over heating them,avoiding panic stops if at all possible. I also snap off the wear indicators,as the brakes wear,fluid level goes down and the brake light comes on,telling you its time to replace the pads,while leaving the rotors in excellent condition. :3gears::gp:
