Boltz.

iTrader: (42)

My car started making a grinding noise when braking last week. I had finals last week, wisdom tooth surgery on thursday and didn't have time/energy to pull the pads and inspect my brakes until last night (Saturday).

Got em out last night and this is what I found.

Keep in mind, I haven't been on the road course or done any hard braking since 2007. I always downshift when slowing down to minimize brake usage and am generally very easy on my brakes.








On every pad, the pad material was peeling away from the backing plate. Not very happy about this.

I am contacting PF to see if they are willing to do anything about the situation. I'll report back with what happens.

Not sure if I'm confident in these pads any longer.

-Justin

o-townFLA

iTrader: (4)

please do... I have these same pads and love them...

PVD04

iTrader: (23)

It's hard to tell from the pics, but it looks like those pads were pretty much done anyways.

Mitchubishievo

iTrader: (310)

There is a noise when I'm ciusing from these pads and looks like I have irregular wear on my PR two peice front rotors. VERY NOT COOL. But thanks for posting this thread. Looks like these Z pads are the culprits.

Davo

iTrader: (3)

NRS race grip, Satisfied FTW!

but seriously, looks like they got heated alot for them to seperate from the backing material

boomn29

iTrader: (47)

Yeah, they do look very thin. How many miles are on them?

I ran PFZ's on my car a few years back. Had a mix of street/track and they were great for that task. I went onto a dedicated track pad, but still throw in the PFZ's when I have gaps in events if I want to drive safely on the streets.

Boltz.

iTrader: (42)

For everyone that is saying the pads didn't have much life left. The pad that broke into pieces was the inner pad and the highlighted pad was the outer pad as shown in the picture. As you can see, there was a lot of pad life left on the outer pad.

red evo8

iTrader: (58)

you down shift to minimize strain on the brakes when down shifting really puts strain on the tranny?

Davo

iTrader: (3)

^^agreed
disc pads are way cheaper and easier to change than a clutch disc

286bhp

iTrader: (1)

In my limited experience, the inner pads wear quicker than the outer pads. Just cause you have plenty of outer pad material left does not mean that your inner pads are OK too.

dbsears

iTrader: (37)

I have about 8k miles on my PF Z's and a couple autoX and they still look fine with no irregular wear. Only weird thing I have noticed is when they get hot from high speed braking they make this super loud annoying howl...

Boltz.

iTrader: (42)

I don't see any problem. I rev match and change trans fluid regularly on a shep trans. Downshifting to 3rd gear to let the car slow itself down is not a problem in my eyes.

boomn29

iTrader: (47)

Ok, so what do they measure? Pads might be up to 1/2" thick when brand new. I usually measure about 7/16" I think.

What a lot of people don't realize is that the second half of your pad goes twice as quick. (it's a little more complex formula than that). This is because it's harder to dissapait the heat.
For example, on a car that's tracked if the pads are 1/2 worn down - they could be close to finished as the second 1/2 will go much much quicker because of the added heat temps.

PVD04

iTrader: (23)

The picture in this post isn't showing up for me, but the pad that's furthest away in the first picture of the first post is pretty much done as far as I'm concerned. As soon as the pad is the same thickness as the backing plate I replace them. If that was the outside pad and the inside pad fell apart, it was probably a few thousand miles beyond the point I would replace it.

Smike

iTrader: (8)

I agree.