New Red Brembo Pads Destroyed my brake system ** PHOTOS

[Bowtie Guy]

For those that know why...

This is eating at me...

There's a lot to be learned just from looking at the pictures, and several have pointed out the clues already.

Serious heat went into those rotors, especially since supposedly only 100 miles went on the car...

What's the first rule of a brake job?

Right, test drive... I'm of the opinion that the "professional garage" didn't do this, or failed at their evaluation, if ANYBODY gets sued, that's the place IMO.

The deep grooves on the inside of that caliper are telling a different story, and certainly not one of immediately pulling over during that test drive.

Broken caliper bolts??

We're they properly torqued to 120-130lb-ft?

Red loc-tite?

Maybe an improper bedding job gone horribly wrong?

Ceramic pads are indeed hard, and can be difficult to bed properly, especially on used rotors, but that heat checking is worse than my Standing Mile rotors that I burned up, and looks as bad as this rotor from this test we did!


This is what a rotor that ran ceramic pads (Z23s) in a Standing Mile, for approximately 30 passes, looks like. ~175 to 30mph at .5-.7gs deceleration.

View attachment 119240

=============

This is a simulation of @TrackDay at Brainerd on the brake dyno, and what the rotor looked like afterwards. (The dyno can't accelerate as fast as our cars, but braking is reasonably accurate)

This is the kind of energy that this rotor took, (and the caliper and mounting hardware), and further, the dyno mounting bracket (reasons) is actually LESS stout than our car.

View attachment 119241

Poor install or wrong pads

 

[xorw]

That photo was taken after the caliper bolts got off. They were already loose at that point caliper bolts were broken.

Original Rotors were machined before the install. I have driven them 45k miles without problems. But after the new Brembo pads were installed this horror happened

 

[xorw]

For those that know why...

This is eating at me...

There's a lot to be learned just from looking at the pictures, and several have pointed out the clues already.

Serious heat went into those rotors, especially since supposedly only 100 miles went on the car...

What's the first rule of a brake job?

Right, test drive... I'm of the opinion that the "professional garage" didn't do this, or failed at their evaluation, if ANYBODY gets sued, that's the place IMO.

The deep grooves on the inside of that caliper are telling a different story, and certainly not one of immediately pulling over during that test drive.

Broken caliper bolts??

We're they properly torqued to 120-130lb-ft?

Red loc-tite?

Maybe an improper bedding job gone horribly wrong?

Ceramic pads are indeed hard, and can be difficult to bed properly, especially on used rotors, but that heat checking is worse than my Standing Mile rotors that I burned up, and looks as bad as this rotor from this test we did!


This is what a rotor that ran ceramic pads (Z23s) in a Standing Mile, for approximately 30 passes, looks like. ~175 to 30mph at .5-.7gs deceleration.

View attachment 119240

=============

This is a simulation of @TrackDay at Brainerd on the brake dyno, and what the rotor looked like afterwards. (The dyno can't accelerate as fast as our cars, but braking is reasonably accurate)

This is the kind of energy that this rotor took, (and the caliper and mounting hardware), and further, the dyno mounting bracket (reasons) is actually LESS stout than our car.

View attachment 119241

Wow thats sick. My rotors are much more burnt after 100miles even tho you did an abuse test. Looks like im the abuse champion here of the brake rotors.

 

[1971demon]

Well, at least a little bit...


: )

finally some of that science stuff you learnted paid off

 

[DGatzby]

OP. Thanks for sharing. We have some of the most experienced folks on the Mopar internet on this Forum Sir. Myself? I am goofy to road race these things, AND have done ALL my own brake work. That involves removing street pads, replacing with race pads, removing race pads and replacing the street pads for every course day several times per year. For a few years I also changed the rotors out also. Now I just leave the Gyrodisc rotors in place for both uses.

Mr @BULL is simply our top brake expert. Several others on here like me, just have done a bunch of wrenching ourselves and damn know our shit, period.

What you have going at arms length is a defective brake job performed by whoever. The caliper bolts (the caliper themselves) never get removed just to replace the pads. Your system has completely failed because those calipers apparently got loose. There is simply no way on this earth you can get that damage in 100 miles of street driving. Hell, I have driven with @TrackDay, I know few people on earth (besides his son) that can pound their brakes that hard. @BULL simulation for BIR using his data is one of the worst case scenarios that can be simulated or seen in person. Only thing worse? He did a few laps at Road America couple of years ago and got pad failure. His rotors did not look as bad as yours!

Whatever professional shop changed out your pads did a defective job. Without further physical inspection I can’t say more. I do expert witness work on the side. IMO the road you want to go down is evidence those caliper bolts were not tight, or those pads were not installed right at all, which is nearly difficult to do!

When did you take that pic of the red pad in your hand?

 

[1971demon]

That photo was taken after the caliper bolts got off. They were already loose at that point caliper bolts were broken.

Original Rotors were machined before the install. I have driven them 45k miles without problems. But after the new Brembo pads were installed this horror happened

well Halloween is right is right around the corner

 

[1971demon]

OP. Thanks for sharing. We have some of the most experienced folks on the Mopar internet on this Forum Sir. Myself? I am goofy to road race these things, AND have done ALL my own brake work. That involves removing street pads, replacing with race pads, removing race pads and replacing the street pads for every course day several times per year. For a few years I also changed the rotors out also. Now I just leave the Gyrodisc rotors in place for both uses.

Mr @BULL is simply our top brake expert. Several others on here like me, just have done a bunch of wrenching ourselves and damn know our shit, period.

What you have going at arms length is a defective brake job performed by whoever. The caliper bolts (the caliper themselves) never get removed just to replace the pads. Your system has completely failed because those calipers apparently got loose. There is simply no way on this earth you can get that damage in 100 miles of street driving. Hell, I have driven with @TrackDay, I know few people on earth (besides his son) that can pound their brakes that hard. @BULL simulation for BIR using his data is one of the worst case scenarios that can be simulated or seen in person. Only thing worse? He did a few laps at Road America couple of years ago and got pad failure. His rotors did not look as bad as yours!

Whatever professional shop changed out your pads did a defective job. Without further physical inspection I can’t say more. I do expert witness work on the side. IMO the road you want to go down is evidence those caliper bolts were not tight, or those pads were not installed right at all, which is nearly difficult to do!

When did you take that pic of the red pad in your hand?

yeah...what he said

 

[1971demon]

'Not buying any of it.

Another great thing about the Forum....the wealth of knowledge...sure am glad we have guys like you that spent years behind a desk learning all this stuff..(so I didn't have to)..we can just draw from the well....now if ya ever need advice on how to fry a dozen donuts....well...you know where to find me..

 

[xorw]

Nice info you are giving guys. Keep in mind i did highway drive with 150mph sometimes to test.

 

[1971demon]

Nice info you are giving guys. Keep in mind i did highway drive with 150mph sometimes to test.

Well...not sure that was the best idea...

 

[EricG]

Nice info you are giving guys. Keep in mind i did highway drive with 150mph sometimes to test.

You are lucky to be alive if you did 150mph with the brakes like that.

I do not think you are supposed to machine these rotors, especially a set that has 45k miles on them. Did you check the thicknesses before machining?

You are going to need new rotors, you can just buy the outer rings at about $800 a pair, re-use the inner part. New hardware is available too to put them together.

 

[1971demon]

Well...not sure that was the best idea...

I don't do nearly the wrenching that some on here do...but be it a simple install of an LMI...or brake pads...I always check..double check..everything..follow proper procedure for bedding pads..and repeatedly check for issues before I would consider a 150mph blast...early on after the install there had to be signs there was a problem...some how you missed them

 

[Unholy707]

Jack up the car, pull the wheel and take more pictures of the caliper and rotor, turn the wheel and take more pics so we can let you know who’s to blame

 

[xorw]

Guys any of you tried this red brembo pads before?

 

[Jack_Toepfer]

Sounds like he had the rotors machined, which means the caliper was removed. That introduces at least 2 more possible failure points -
The rotors were not machined properly
The calipers were not installed properly
The pads were not installed properly (the original theory)
The fact that this happened on both sides at the same time is more strange than the actual failure.
The claim that there was no smell or indication of failure before the caliper broke off the mount is highly suspect. You cannot install new brakes and bed them properly without a new brake smell. You cannot burn up a rotor like that without a bad brake smell. If the heat did in fact cause a hardware failure of the caliper bolt - that would be a first (and second!) time that has ever happened.

xrow - how did you first discover the failure? You were driving down the road and what happened?

 

[BULL]

You are lucky to be alive if you did 150mph with the brakes like that.

I do not think you are supposed to machine these rotors, especially a set that has 45k miles on them. Did you check the thicknesses before machining?

You are going to need new rotors, you can just buy the outer rings at about $800 a pair, re-use the inner part. New hardware is available too to put them together.

Personally, I'd do a thorough inspection of every part starting from at least the hub/bearing and replace it all.

So at a minimum, hub, bracket (which means spindle) , caliper, rotor setand wheel (obviously).

 

[BULL]

And what about the rears?


There is much more to this story.

 

[DGatzby]

Nice info you are giving guys. Keep in mind i did highway drive with 150mph sometimes to test.

Don’t matter, but thanks. My RE does up to 170 mph every two minutes at BIR now, TD and I do about three 150’s on each lap at RA. Again no way on the street without being dead or in jail for 100 miles IMO. Others do those 1/2 miles at 150+, several drag racers have chimed in, they can do 150+ in quarter mile runs.

 

[Jack_Toepfer]

I kinda want to see the paperwork drawn up for the lawsuit. lol

 

[xorw]