Changed brake pads to "Bendix" Advance, now feeling soft.

[preeman80]

Hey All,

Just changed my brake pads, All round, to the bendix pads, but now the brakes feel soft(er)? I am sure they dont feel as hard (strong?) as when I got the car brand new?

Any ideas? Something that should be (can be) tightened somewhere? I didn't change the pads a mechanic did.

All input will be appreciated! :D

[Nate]

from my limited knowledge of brakes you have to bed them in ... basically at the moment you have this

|(
| )
|( where the | is the pad and the ) is the disc
| )
|(

>>> NICE new smooth brake pads and not so new brake discs that have grooves

then after a few hard stops you get this

((
))
(( where the ( is the pad and disc
))
((

brake pads have beded into the shape of the disc meaning the brake pad will get maximum force on the disc rather than just skimming the ridges like it is at the moment

just my thoughts ... check with the smart ppl first

[twilightprotege]

did they machine the disc?

[Riceboy]

1. they should have machined the rotors to have a smoother surface for ur pads.. if they didnt they r amateurs

2. if they racing type or high temp compound they will not have as good initial bite as ur stock ones....

3. did they bleed the brake fluid properly ???

4. just get new brakes i.e. endless coz bendix = **** lol

[twilightprotege]

yes i have to admit i'm not a fan of bendix. there are plenty of better brands out there for not much more. endless is quite expensive, but try hawk. the american forum members commonly use hawk HP and HP plus on the sp20's with very good results.

[Cosmo Dude]

Hawk blue are realy good but with any serious brakepad they need to be at temp to work best, cold they can be a little scary.

[twilightprotege]

yeah i have been told time and time again get hawk blue for the track as it's just fantastic!

[Cosmo Dude]

Hawk black for the track :D

[twilightprotege]

is it blue 1 step above hp plus and black 2 steps?

[Nate]

woohoo ... just went for a hot lap of nebo in the rade supercar (94 charade) now with metal king pads and yoko road semi slicks OMG!! those pads are great and they havent even bedded in yet!!

[Cosmo Dude]

Metal kings will bite but metal against metal will wear the disks faster than non-metal pads. Your choice :|

[preeman80]

DOH! and now I find out that the Bendix pads are crap!!! damn!! next time I will ask first.. thanks guys.. I will ask all the points mentioned above and see if there is any resolution...

[platypus]

i never used anything else but bendix.... as a passenger car its all you need

[twilightprotege]

yeah but you have a slowtege/ploughtege.

bendix arent crap, it's just that there are better pads out there

[preeman80]

lol @
yeah but you have a slowtege/ploughtege.

[platypus]

with the ploughtege history i need an arrester hook, twin parachutes, studded tyres, and one million airbags....

but in all seriousness its gonna be best to put passenger car brakes on your passenger car... unless your doing stupid **** there ain't a great need for it, as when you put on the hawks for eg, you will then have the drama of needing higher temps to get the pads to bite properly

[Nate]

Metal kings will bite but metal against metal will wear the disks faster than non-metal pads. Your choice :|

yeah thats why they work so well ... but when you need new rotors cause the old ones are to low to machine its all good ... not my car anway!!!

[SFC01]

There would be no need to machine rotors unless the runout on them is out of spec. If they have some grooves, who cares? As was said earlier the pads bed into the profile of the rotors.
Not skimming the rotors does not an amateur make!
I had tales of woe fitting RB156 compound pads to new rotors for the first while. But I didn't allow enough time between replacing rotors and replacing pads for the rotors to bed properly. After bedding the new pads the pedal was waay spongy, bled the fluid, checked everything out and all was good. Just took a couple of hundred k's for everything to come in. Now everything is wunderbar. :mrgreen:

[platypus]

yeah i have the same pads... forgot to mention that......

i replaced them myself, and they took a while to bed in... just did some hard stops from 80km/h and it fixed up v. quickly!!!

[jcywong]

mazda pads are much better than bendix and cost only $97 per pair
for sure the are other brands that performs better but they are much expensive

my point is if u after performance go for other more expensive brands, like endless
if u want to save $ go for mazda pads.

[SFC01]

The big question is where does Mazda source their pads as OE, and are they able to ge procured direct???

[Cosmo Dude]

If they are like other manufacturers then they would be made by a third party with a mazda specific compound. If the 3rd party company makes their own brand they would be made with their own pad material.
That's why the Bendix pads are better than the OEM Ford and Holden while they come from the same factory.