Gutmann pug

Ive run the FDB 986 in my peugeot before and to be honest they are a good pad with a long (ish) life. However you cant compare a heavy lump scooby to a light weight pug. The mintex 1144 sounds like a reasonable fast road pad but again depending on how hard you hit the brakes and how fast you drive the length of life will vary.
I've always found ferrodo to be a good value for money pad when compared to others. As an example I have just got off the phone from montex who are quoting me £133 for a set of 1166's for the front of the pug whereas I can get a set of DS2500's for the pug for around £50. Performance may not be quite so good but the mintex costs nearly 3 times as much. Just not worth my while.

I have also ran EBC red and green stuff pads and they are awfull IMHO, the greens are not safe for use on scoobs IMHO again.

Gary

Apple

I used to be - I used to work at Mintex on truck & rail apps. then Reg 90 type approval for cars so have seen a few blocks, shoes & pads...

I didn't see much of Ferodo stuff so can't really comment on their materials but as above, depending upon price will be either road, fast road or track compounds. AFAIR after normal "Joe Bloggs" materials, the 2000 series were "warm road," 2500 were fast road and 3000 were more dedicated competition stuff but it's 5 years since I was in the friction material industry so things may have changed - formulations certainly did for a variety of reasons

You've got to accept the trade-offs between performance and comfort with any friction material - everybody would like some material that a) never wore away, b) never made any dust, c) never squealed / squeaked / groaned etc, d) would stop you from 200mph in 10 yds, e) never wore discs away and many other ideals...

It ain't gonna happen so if you want a higher performance pad then you've got to accept dust / noise / wear rates as you're trying to dissipate a lot of energy quickly - the outputs being heat and noise generally.

For competition pads, warm up characteristics, fade, recovery, high temperature performance come into play. If you put too high a performance pad material on a road car and pootle off down to the shops then at some point you'll become a cropper (as seen in someone's post a while back as the material hadn't warmed up and he didn't stop as soon as he thought he would... )

From what I remember, M1166 is single venue stage material so is too much of a competition material for "ordinary" road use unless you're a complete loon (no offence to anybody that uses it like this but it's not designed as a road formulation )

AFAIR M1144 was fast road, M1155 was similar but had better performance longevity at higher temps where M1144 might start to fade away. M1166 was rally car stuff and M1177 was single seater race material. These are application examples but give you an idea of the operating envelope.

Hope this helps...

Apple

vulnax999

iTrader: (7)

Mintex 1155's on my wagon, with the 4 pot calipers and discs. Feel fine when cold, not had a fade yet although don't tend to be a very late braker, but am running 360 bhp! so do get up a head of steam occasionaly!
Think they were about 80 - 90 quid, probably off ASPerformance IIRC about 9 - 12 months ago.

Not too dusty ( Pagids were horribly dusty and even more expensive). And little or no squeal.

Chaddy

O.K. couldn't mess about any longer, bought the Mintex MDB 1416 £20 inc. VAT at my local factors, DMS,.. Apple, you were right about the compound M1230..so we've got 'white van man' brakes ! also in the blurb inside the box, it recommends that you change pads when they get below 2mm, or when the wear indicator is activated... 2mm sounds about right to me, no less, I would have thought.

Apple

glad to help - depending upon the typre of wear indicator on the pads, if it's a screech clip (bent bit of springy steel) you can set the life to nearly whatever you want by bending the point of the clip towards or away from the backplate (away = earlier warning, towards = "nearer the knuckle" )

If it's a contact wire that's glued into the pad near the backplate, it's a good idea to check the pads by eye every once in a while as the wires have been known to not work (corrosion, damage etc) and then you're running metal to metal and no brakes

I should add, M1230 isn't competition material - just a heavier duty standard formulation so rally stages are

rgv_stu

apple - will all mdb1416 be m1230 compound ??
mine will have to order them in so i cant check the box etc.

chaddy - do they seem ok ??

cheers

Chaddy

Haven't had a chance to change them yet, it's been peeing with rain for the last few days..good job they are not quite down to the 2mm !

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

IIRC standard classic impreza pads - like alot cars, are made by JURID (bendix/honeywell) - hunt about your motor factors (open the box read the manufacturer off the backing plate) and without doubt you'll find at least one brand will have the OEM pads in somebody elses box for alot less money Same applies to oil filters, fuel filters, cambelts etc.

Just a word with changing pad compunds - especially with ones that don't work as well as OEM pads when cold (pretty much every single fast road pad on the market) - get the matching rears. Not doing so can cause some unpleasent surprises come emergency braking when cold (or after 15mins on the motorway without braking). Trust me - the first thing you'll blame is the ABS as well. I've dealt with at least half a dozen people over the years complaining of this on certain cars and it was simply due to them fitting uprated pads on the front and neglecting the rears.

Apple

Ali-B

See if your motor factor is chuffed about you reading the backplate info as opening the box means technically that they can't sell them if you don't buy them - ECE Reg. 90 approval legislation. Some factors might be more lenient but it's done so boxes show evidence of tampering and hence pads can't be swapped over (e.g. putting immitation / cheap / dangerous crap into "higher quality" manufacturer's boxes)

Just because it says Jurid etc on the backplate doesn't necessarily mean it's the same compound - manufacturers develop OE materials and charge a premium for them (hence Subaru prices) and don't want the same stuff released to the aftermarket as they can't screw you for the extra wonga if you can buy it elsewhere. Aftermarket stuff that has passed Reg 90 type approval may actually be better than the OE material as the approval tests are more stringent in certain areas.

As for the fast road pads not working as well as OEM when cold, OEM stuff has to be a Jack of all trades (maybe master of none) so it probably will work from cold. Fast road pads are designed to work better when warm as it's expected that is the condition they'll most likely see in service. They'll possibly be better in fade / recovery conditions than OEM so it's horses for courses etc...

I agree about finding matching fronts and rears as you're effectively playing with the brake balance of the car if you make one axle better performing than the other. Matching the F&R doesn't always mean putting the same compund on each end as this can upset the performance - it's about keeping the same performance ratio front to rear...

Apple

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Your preaching to the teacher

Most motor factors/consumers still don't know about the regulations with tamper seals on the boxes. I still recieve brake pads from the likes of Part Co and LSUK that have been opened. By rights I can send them back if I wish to.

But then there is the common case that crops up where the wrong part is placed in the wrong box - so opening to check whats inside matches to what is on the label is a common practice...Quite worrying.

I'm not referring to the bias with the matching issue its more to do with fitting pads on the front that have inferior ability to work when cold whilst using rear pads that work ok. When hot, fine, when cold - potentially lethal.

Some cars due to weight/compound/abs type/caliper type/size are worse than others. Imprezas with 3 channel and 2/4pots are one of them.

Mick

iTrader: (1)

Ali - why does ABS not solve this problem?

Thanks

Mick

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

On some particular car models the abs just compounds the problem. In the worst case scienario (cold FR front pads OE rear) the rears are providing more braking effort than the fronts. On some models of cars with basic ABS system they don't always behave as you would expect - Result is a pulsing pedal and nothing much else in terms of stopping. Nothing wrong with the abs, just a chain factors that contribute to it not behaving as it should (stopping the car ) Without the abs the rears would lock up more easily until the front warm up.

On the otherhand I'm yet to hear from anyone with relatively new cars of any make that have had symptoms or any problems using stock rear and FR/T front pads. I presume mostly it has something to do with EBD (brakeforce distribution) that is incorperated into the ABS which helps to balance things out - which older cars do not have.