Couple of things I noticed since I've been going to track days. Sometimes my driver's front pads wear out much quicker than passenger's front. I suspect it has something to do with trail braking on clock wise circuts. Any input on that?

Next I've never had a rotor wear absolutely evently - it always ends up with some sort of grooves in it. Sometimes these grooves are farily minor, sometimes they get pretty deep. My guess is that the less cooling brakes get the more prone to gooves rotors will be. Anyone with a duct set up noticed an improvement in rotor wear?

What about when you go through a set of pads and need to replace them but the rotor is grooved from the old set of pads. What should be done to maximise braking performance and life of pads & rotors at the track? Do you do another bedding procedure?

From my experience if the grooves are bad enough, new set of pads really makes them worse. I suspect due to overheating the rotor at the grooves / hot spots or whatever its called.

Now the same situation where the brake pads are swapped at home. Is there any additional thing (perhaps like turning rotors or sanding the pads down to make them smooth again) that's beneficial.

Let's hear what you've found to work and what should be avoided. Trying to get max life out of my rotors / pads since they're kinda expensive.

Drew

 

Uneven pad wear on a left/right basis may be from ABS kicking in on just one side regularly or an airpocket left over from the last bleed.

Brake ducts will help but not solve your 'problems'. Rotors are $80 and $200 pads will last you two sets of rotors. Get used to the idea that you are going to replace these every few weekends. There is no way around it other than driving slower, which defeats the purpose of tracking the car right? Brakes are consumables just like gasoline.

 

This reminds me, I need to change my front rotors.

 

agreed on brakes = consumables. so what's the proper way to change the pads on used rotors? just swap them out and go? should they be bedded (if the same pad just came off)? anything else?

also did anyone had good experience turning rotors? everything i heard seems to indicate it's a waste of money and if the rotor needs to be turned you just need to toss it and get a new one. is that true?

 

Actually you want to bed the pads in on a used rotor. Weird huh?

The gouged out surface on a rotor is normal and other than looking fugly there is no compelling negative here. It is ok. Why would you ever need to turn a rotor? They start heat checking long before the surface gets really knarly and no amount of resurfacing is going to remove cracks. If its jacked up, chuck it. They are cheap to replace. Four weekends isn't an unusual lifespan for front rotors.

 

what kind of rotors are you getting for 80 dollars?

 

OEM... about $68 each.

 

^
wouldn't it be better to get the cobalt g3000? especially since its a lil cheaper?

How can I tell when I need to replace the rotor?

thanks.