Power stop pads and rotors

[Greenman]

Looking at using these on my 2014 F150. 32k miles on it and the stock front rotors have warped. This is a work truck, heavy loads and towing a dump trailer, so the brakes take a beating.

If any of you have used them I'd love to hear what you think.

 

[leper84]

Those a great trucks, but unfortunately they sure love to warp rotors.

I've never personally used power stop, but I will say the whole drilled and slotted thing they do is a gimmick. Does absolutely nothing.

 

[thesmokingman]

Those a great trucks, but unfortunately they sure love to warp rotors.

I've never personally used power stop, but I will say the whole drilled and slotted thing they do is a gimmick. Does absolutely nothing.

Drilled allows water to squish threw during wet braking, though it does have plenty of drawbacks like cracking reduced material, etc. Slotted help remove hot gases and dust under heavy braking, but again have drawbacks. You can't resurface a slotted rotor, have to use a special mill. I would lean towards doing nothing for a truck too, but not for sports cars.

 

[Greenman]

So what do I do to solve the problem? Are stock rotors the best I'm going to get?

 

[thesmokingman]

So what do I do to solve the problem? Are stock rotors the best I'm going to get?

You'll have to research the rotor thicknesses. Don't buy anything thinner than stock. Stock is usually best for all around. The kicker about aftermarket is that unless it's a hi performance product, chances are it's a step down from the true OEM part. I've read that Stoptech makes good rotors for teh F150 also.

The biggest difference in braking performance are the pads (and tires). I would look into better pads, some Hawks or EBC or anything better than stock. The warping is most likely from pad material being deposited, ie. glazing. To combat this you have to prevent the brakes from cooling down w/o airflow after hardstops, basically drive casually w/o hitting the brakes. Or fashion someway to keep the brakes from hitting the redzone temp wise like this below.

Something you could try is to get a brake cooling duct kit and mod it to fit your application. There's a lot of room under your truck.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Does your trailer have brakes? That might be some thing worth looking into just to take some of the burden off the front brakes so your truck.

 

[Zivic]

when it comes to brake components I usually end up with one of the following brands
OEM
Brembo
Akebono

.. IMHO you can never go wrong if with brembo rotors if you can find them for your application

 

[bruceb]

Try using Hawk brand brake pads or any other ceramic type pads. Or if you want real performance (but it is very costly) you can do a complete brake upgrade;

http://www.autoanything.com/brakes/61A2861A0A0.aspx

 

[thestrangebrew1]

A member on the F150EB forum installed these and has no complaints. I was actually looking into getting them but my brakes are ok so far and no warping. I've only got 18k, 2k of those have been towing.

 

[Greenman]

Does your trailer have brakes? That might be some thing worth looking into just to take some of the burden off the front brakes so your truck.

The trailer has brakes, and they work well enough. The issue is two fold. Most of my work is in the hills, a lot of up and down travel, along with that is the basic load out on my truck is around 1000 pounds, add around 750 pounds of meat in the cab and it's substantial.

I had the same issues with my last F150, it just ate front brakes. I rarely saw more than 20k out of them, I once chewed through a cheap set in under 15k.

Perhaps my expectations are simply to high and 25k is what I should expect a set of front pads to last?

 

[lxskllr]

Perhaps my expectations are simply to high and 25k is what I should expect a set of front pads to last?

That doesn't sound unreasonable to me. I think I got 30k-40k out of a fully loaded van, but no trailer, and no mountains.

edit:
dunno how f150s are setup now, but my last van had an overdrive button. I always took it out of od in hilly areas to help engine brake. You could also try downshifting.

 

[Greenman]

That doesn't sound unreasonable to me. I think I got 30k-40k out of a fully loaded van, but no trailer, and no mountains.

edit:
dunno how f150s are setup now, but my last van had an overdrive button. I always took it out of od in hilly areas to help engine brake. You could also try downshifting.

The new trucks have a 6 speed tranny and tow/haul mode that shifts pretty aggressively.

Looking around, it seems that every extreme service rotor is drilled and slotted.

 

[thesmokingman]

The new trucks have a 6 speed tranny and tow/haul mode that shifts pretty aggressively.

Looking around, it seems that every extreme service rotor is drilled and slotted.

Maybe they are trading lifespan for better braking performance. Drilling rotors literally kills them because very few have the means to actually do it right, like Brembo who chamfers the holes so they don't fatigue. Drilling plus slotting is a heck of a lot of material removed from the rotor!

 

[thomsbrain]

It's EXTREMELY rare for a rotor that's within service thickness to physically warp. What is happening to your rotors is you are braking hard enough to melt the pad (not inherently a problem as long as the pad is designed to continue creating friction in this condition), AND you're then coming to a complete stop and letting the pad cool down on the rotor so that it leaves an uneven deposit on that spot.

First thing to know is that you definitely don't want slotted or drilled rotors. Those are purely for show and all they do is remove thermal mass and cause the pad and rotor to heat up faster. No track car runs them, and no truck should either. There may be, however, aftermarket rotors with better internal venting than stock.

The only approaches that will both increase pad life and reduce the pad deposits from occurring will be to duct cool air to the center of the rotors, or to switch to a larger brake kit. As much emphasis is placed on brakes for towing, I don't see many trucks that have brakes that are meaningfully different than a mid-size sedan. Summit Racing sells cheap ducting solutions if you want to DIY something. Good big brake kits cost thousands of dollars.

In the mean time, look up how to "bed" brake pads. Re-bedding your brake pads will solve any "warping" (until it happens again), though at the expense of a little pad life. If bedding sounds too dangerous, you can have your rotors turned at an auto parts store for very little money, or you can even buff them by hand with steel wool to clean off those pesky "warping" pad deposits.

 

[thesmokingman]

Or replace the pads since they've probably already been overcooked. And if they've been cooked so too has your brake fluid. Also if you use a brand like EBC which has a pre-breakin layer, it scrubs the rotor removing the glaze that's most likely on there.

Something that hasn't been touched on is to raise the thermal boiling point of your brake system by replacing the brake fluid with a higher temp fluid, pads with a higher temp pad, brake lines etc (stainless). This will give you more breathing room until you cook your brakes again. However all this is moot if you cannot give your brakes time to cool between heavy braking sessions. The pads will overheat and leave deposits all over again.

 

[bruceb]

Better pads would make a big difference. As would upgrading to either a 2 or 4 piston caliper as they apply pressure much more evenly, spreading out the heat and increasing braking performance.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

4wd? If you have 2wd then the 4wd version may be an easy swap. Same with Expedition/Navigator calipers/pads/rotors might be a direct fit but offer higher spec.

Raptor front brakes? Might be silly expensive to go that route....

I've had good luck with Brembo solid rotors (no funky drilling or slots) and Hawk pads

 

[Meghan54]

I've got a Silverado I used a lot for towing and wasn't completely happy with the braking performance, esp. getting pushed down mountains.

I investigated both slotted and drilled rotors, but honestly, I went with the cheaper option first, and that was a decent set of rotors (Brembo blanks--found on Amazon, of all places) and better pads.

I first put on a complete set of Hawk LTS pads, and I found that the cold bite improved but the hot bite wasn't that much better than the OEM pads. I changed the front pads to EBS Yellow stuff and the braking power, both for cold and hot bite, was much improved. All three pads, OEM, Hawk, and EBS, were FF rated, but the EBS Yellow Stuff pads were vastly better in both cold bite and hot bite compared to the other two. Unfortunately, the EBS dust badly, but I'm willing to put up with the increased dusting for the much improved braking power. I did leave the Hawk pads on the rear of the truck, tho, since most of the braking is done by the fronts.

 

[Ferzerp]

First thing to know is that you definitely don't want slotted or drilled rotors. Those are purely for show and all they do is remove thermal mass and cause the pad and rotor to heat up faster. No track car runs them, and no truck should either. There may be, however, aftermarket rotors with better internal venting than stock.

 

[thesmokingman]

I've got a Silverado I used a lot for towing and wasn't completely happy with the braking performance, esp. getting pushed down mountains.

I investigated both slotted and drilled rotors, but honestly, I went with the cheaper option first, and that was a decent set of rotors (Brembo blanks--found on Amazon, of all places) and better pads.

I first put on a complete set of Hawk LTS pads, and I found that the cold bite improved but the hot bite wasn't that much better than the OEM pads. I changed the front pads to EBS Yellow stuff and the braking power, both for cold and hot bite, was much improved. All three pads, OEM, Hawk, and EBS, were FF rated, but the EBS Yellow Stuff pads were vastly better in both cold bite and hot bite compared to the other two. Unfortunately, the EBS dust badly, but I'm willing to put up with the increased dusting for the much improved braking power. I did leave the Hawk pads on the rear of the truck, tho, since most of the braking is done by the fronts.

Nice. You could improve upon your setup of EBC's further by changing the lines to stainless (prevent expansion) and fluid to something like ate superblue which has a high boiling point. I use EBC reds on my car too.

 

[Greenman]

So after several hours of reading, I ended up buying the powerstop pads and rotors. While I'm not convinced drilled and slotted rotors are of any value at all, a whole bunch of fellows over at the F150 forums had good things to say about them. The pads and rotors were around $250, so it's not much of an investment.
I'll post a very brief review after they're installed, and another one when they wear out or fail. With any luck that won't be for a couple years.

 

[thesmokingman]

So after several hours of reading, I ended up buying the powerstop pads and rotors. While I'm not convinced drilled and slotted rotors are of any value at all, a whole bunch of fellows over at the F150 forums had good things to say about them. The pads and rotors were around $250, so it's not much of an investment.
I'll post a very brief review after they're installed, and another one when they wear out or fail. With any luck that won't be for a couple years.

Not to sound liek a broken record but think about changing your fluid. Stock fluid typically doesn't have a high boil over temp. Hmmm, the two biggest factors of degraded braking are brake pads cooking and fluid boiling. Both are related but different. When pads overheat and dont get to cool properly they leave material behind on the rotors, the effect of that is warping (not actual warping but pulsing as the friction coefficient changes due to the left over material). The second is fluid boiling, the effect is a mushy pedal. Once the fluid boils it causes gas bubbles to form inside the caliper. This leads to a spongy pedal and it only gets worse and does not go away. Stock fluid is most often DOT3 which has a minimum boiling point of around 400F Dry/284F Wet. If you replaced it with a DOT4 like super blue you could raise the boiling points 175F dry/100F wet or 575/400 ish. That is a huge margin to gain, no more mushy pedal.

 

[Greenman]

Not to sound liek a broken record but think about changing your fluid. Stock fluid typically doesn't have a high boil over temp. Hmmm, the two biggest factors of degraded braking are brake pads cooking and fluid boiling. Both are related but different. When pads overheat and dont get to cool properly they leave material behind on the rotors, the effect of that is warping (not actual warping but pulsing as the friction coefficient changes due to the left over material). The second is fluid boiling, the effect is a mushy pedal. Once the fluid boils it causes gas bubbles to form inside the caliper. This leads to a spongy pedal and it only gets worse and does not go away. Stock fluid is most often DOT3 which has a minimum boiling point of around 400F Dry/284F Wet. If you replaced it with a DOT4 like super blue you could raise the boiling points 175F dry/100F wet or 575/400 ish. That is a huge margin to gain, no more mushy pedal.

I should clarify a bit. The brakes on my truck never overheated, I never smelled burning pad, and they never faded out. They actually work well but the front rattles like a drum roll when I push on the pedal.

 

[RayH]

Using a torque wrench to get even tightening and not over tightening the nuts will go a long way to help prevent warped rotors.

 

[WackyDan]

2012 F-150 here... Towing 8k of trailer. At about 16k miles my rotors were warped.

TO be honest, I've never and I mean never had good luck with the factory brakes or tires on a new vehicle.

On my dodge truck the tires were gone at 20k miles and my rotors were gone.

On our chevy sedan, I think I got 27k out of the factory tires and just about 30k out of the rotors.

Now on the Ford I've had to have the rotors turned, and the Michelins that came with it look like they will take me to 30k if that.

On the Dodge and the Chevy once I had the brakes done with OEM parts they lasted and lasted. The Dodge went over 80,000 miles until I needed to deal with new rotors and calipers (lots of highway miles). The chevy is at 88k miles and still on the same rotors with only one turning.

Tires? I got 50k out of my first tire set after factory on the dodge. On the Chevy I got about 55k on the 2nd set of tires and could have gotten more, but the tires were aging and starting to have fissures.

I just think they throw some cheap shit on them on the assembly line and for the life of me I can not explain why repairing with the same Chevy or Ford parts got more miles out of the brakes.