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Better brake pads?

25K views 33 replies 17 participants last post by  subymike  
#1 ·
Anyone have some DRW brake pad part numbers that wont turn your wheels black every day? Looking for ceramic or something that will not damage aluminum wheels.
Thanks!
 
#4 ·
I bought a set of the Wagner Severe Duty to have on hand for mine- haven't put them on yet. They are for emergency and commercial severe duty service.
No idea how much dust they'll emit- haven't had that issue with the OEM pads yet at 21,000 mi.
 
#16 ·
Just ordered the full Powerstop drilled and slotted truck and suv kit with ceramic pads. Had good reviews from f-150 owners. Will have dealer install next week when it's in for the driveshaft recall.
 
#21 ·
I did the z36 powerstop rotors and pads on my F250 and didn't really notice the difference in stopping power. They definitely wore out quicker and smelled a lot more. I don't think I even got 10,000 miles out of them. They might've been slightly better on dusting but not much. That was the main reason I got them.

Also the first box I got had the right pads but wrong rotors. The packaging had the right model number on the outside but there were rotors for a Chevy on the inside. Also their packaging sucks and the pads had fallen out of the inner pad box and the pad material had chunks taken out of it. The second box had the right parts but the pads in this box also had some damage but not as bad as the first box. No more powerstop products for me.
 
#22 ·
Interesting. I've never gotten less than 50-80k kms out of a set of brakes until I got the Transit. The rears were shot at 30k and now my second set of rears is done at 86k. Fronts aren't making noise yet, but they're very close to spent.

The reviews for the power stop stuff are mostly from Ford Truck owners looking for an upgrade from the horrible stockers. Those reviews are almost all positive. Grassroots motorsports has some favourable threads regarding Powerstop too.

I'm not really looking for increased brake performance, just a decent replacement that's not factory, and won't cake the wheels in dust every week. I'm a lead foot, but at the same time, very easy on brakes.

Of the 100 or so reviews I skimmed over, your experience is about the only negative one. Just my luck.
 
#25 ·
I am having an issue with Power Stop Z36 kit during heavy braking at high speeds.
I have over 700 miles on the new Z36 kit and have noise in the medium to low tone
not high pitch noise. The noise is not ABS or warped rotor type noise or vibrations.
It is more as if the pad is being pressed in the rotor cutout slots and causing a low buzz to mourning
noise. I can not determine if it is just front, rear, left/right, or just one wheel.

Normal braking at any speeds does not create any noise or vibration issues.
High speed in my case is 65-75 MPH and the heavy braking I was forced to do
due to a driver cutting into my lane during a poor lane change.

I decided to try and reproduce the noise by driving 65-70 MPH and braking hard driving straight.
I was able to reproduce the noise 5 times in a row.
The 6 time the issue would not happen but after about about 5 minutes of driving without braking the issue occurred.

Power stop Tech support has been called two times and the guy is real helpful and not trying
to blame me. He thought the first time I had the issue it might have been the ABS but i had no pulsating in the brake peddle.

The second call was after doing my high speed testing with heavy braking as I described above.
I described how I did the pad bedding and only light to medium braking during the first 400 miles.
After our conversation he actually volunteered to send me a complete kit replacement for free.

I have been doing my own brake jobs for the past 30 years on many vehicles and have
never come across this braking issue before.
I would like to understand the issue before changing the whole set of rotors and pads again.
 
#26 ·
lolwisper4321, did you get the issue resolved? I've had the power stops installed for a few thousand kms and am very pleased. No wobble or vibrations so far. Initial bite is noticeably better than stock. But my stockers were pretty shot. Can't really tell if they dust less because i have my winters on, but based on the ceramic pads on my other vehicle, it must be less than the stock Ford pads.
 
#27 ·
The issue went away after about 2,000 miles on the new brakes. Powerstop did send the new Z36 kit out as promised but since the issue stopped I kept the first Z36 kit on the van. The other thing I noticed about these brakes during the first 2,000 miles was that braking was reduced when pads were cold.
After the first stop the brakes worked great! The continuous braking power of Z36 kit is much better than the OEM brakes. The OEM brakes would fade during medium to heavy braking. I only have about 3,000 miles on the Z36 kit so can not comment on pad life.

No much dust from these pads.
 
#30 ·
I think a lot of light duty trucks are designed to replace the pads and rotors as a set now. That's they way it was with my 2003 Sprinter, and since I don't want to spend a bunch of money for the Transit repair manual I can't tell you if that's what Ford wants' too. But I suspect it is. Set are pretty reasonably priced on Ebay/Amazon.