If you have squeaky ceramic brakes, read this...

ZX2 Dedicated Discussion ZX2 Discussion
1

Ok so for those who DO know my annoyance with my squeaky brakes that I have dealt with for MONTHS you know what I’m talking about.

Here’s the symptom: Squeaking brakes moving or stopping, worse backing up.

I had rotated the wheels and also tried brake cleaner and it made it WORSE. Sometimes it would do it, sometimes it wouldn’t squeak.

Well tonight I finally took the damn things apart and what I found is that on my ceramic brakes, outside the pad itself was a metallic shield. I have never seen that on any other brakepad except this pair of ceramics. They were the highest quality brake I could purchase at napa without going with Hawk pads. Well what happens is that the metal shielding wears like the pad but not as well as the pad. So as we all know your pads always have a bit of friction to some extent on the pad against the rotor. So in my case I have turned my rotors and had a TINY little high spot on one spot on the rotor. So what is happening is that this tiny little high spot on my rotor was touching just barely enough to come into enough pressure with the pad while driving that it would make contact with this metal liner around the pad because this metal liner was NOT wearing down properly.

Well what does smooth metal vs somewhat smooth metal do? SQUEEK SQUEEK SQUEEK FREAKING SQUEEK! So this metal shield was bubbling and flaking. So because of that it wasn’t wearing right. A screwdriver and/or razorblade on the outside edge of the pad will take a little bit of this shield off. Don’t take it all off, it’s there for a reason, but scraping just about 1mm worth of length off of it so that the edge of it isn’t scraping will fix it and allow the pad to wear like normal again.

So apparently all 4 pads were doing it, but now, i took it on a drive, stops like a dream as always but without the stupid annoying squeek squeek squeek.

2

now i thought u had a mouse in your pocket that was makingf the squeek :lol:

3

I have a set of ceramic brake pads on my car I’ve never heard that squeek you talk about. You sure you bedded them in right after installation? There is a good reference as to how to correctly bed in new brake parts on the Baer Brake site.

4

I did indeed. Mine did not start squeaking till many miles after they were installed long down the line. Keep in mind this was not squeaking due to bad bedding but actually a very strange layer of what looked like metal (literally like a metal shaving) on the outside of the pad that appeared to never wear down with the pad. The pad itself wore fine. I took all the pads off not long ago for another inspection and they are doing awesome. Since i shaved off some of that lining off the outer ridge of the pad the noise has never came back and the brakes have performed just fine.

And BTW - i know the article you are talking about, yes, that is a very good article.