I have 42,000 miles on my 03 SE and I am now hearing my brake pad indicators going off. It sounds like the noise is coming from the front passenger side. I need some advice on what route to take to replace them. I have yet to have any problems with this stock setup, no warping or pad material sticking to my rotors. I do very little repeated heavy braking. I do accelerate hard though. Here are the various routes I have been considering:

------Front only------
1. Cut the stock rotors (they are in great shape still) and install OEM pads from DaveB.
2. Replace front rotors with Brembo blanks and install Hawk HPS pads.


------Front and Rear------
3. Cut all rotors and install OEM pads.
4. Replace all rotors with Brembo blanks and install Hawk HPS pads all around.

 

Cut rotors and go with ceramic pads for autoparts store....Much smoother braking than oem. I also never had problem with stock s/u warping......but cermaic pads are much better than stock

 

Should I do it on all fours, or can I get away with doing it on just the fronts? What do you think about Napa ceramic pads?

 

get powerslots and Hawk.. and forget about any kind of problems... my .02

 

I'm really dissapointed with my brembo blanks. I can not remember the exact month, Jan. Feb., Or Mar. But i replaced all four with brembo blanks, and used hawk .... (not sure which ones) and I noticed today the are already "warping".
I am very good on my brakes and this is rediculous.



Trash

 

Thanks for the input. I have ordered a set of OEM front pads from DaveB. Since I have not had any warping problems with the stock setup, I will just be cutting my rotors. If I have any problems oh well, I am out a set of pads $53 shipped and the $20 for having my rotors cut.

 

Where can you get the rotors cut for $20. The Stealers ask about a $100 for the job.

 

Man you could have got some ceramic pads for pepboys or autozone for 39.00 and they are way better than OEM. I made the switch and i swear it was like night and day difference with how smooth and quiet the braking was.

 

i second that. raybestos is a great brand, about $40 for a set of two.
a lot of mechanics i have talked to prefer this brand of ceramic pads. i dunno if autozone carries them, but a lot more people rip on autozone. their stuff is 3rd grade **** and whatnot. i dunno if this is true for all their parts, but some of their sensor are definetely garbage. their brake pads may be fine.

 

There is a Carquest by me that charges $8.50 a rotor. There is also a Napa that charges $12.00 a rotor. Of course I have to bring the rotors to them. I hope the stealer was including the labor of removing them for $100.

 

I know, but I have a buddy who used to be a Nissan mechanic. He said the ceramics may give me better bite in the front, but that would change the F/R bias. I know that is not necessarily a bad thing. I have never had a problem with the stock setup. In emergeny braking conditions my tire traction is the limiting factor. I have never been in a situation of repeated hard braking. If I was going to so all fours I would have used ceramic all all around.

 

I had great luck with 19.25 per rotor aftermarket blanks. I'm buying a set of four next week to complete my trasformation back to stock brakes- if someone buys my Blehmco TTZ caliper kit.

Don't waste your $$$ on Powerslots, Brembos etc. Cheapest rotors, and good pads like Hawk HPS will do you just as good as these expenssive azz 200 dollar Brembos. My cheapo rotors where made by Bendix- company that supplies alot of rotors to the OEMs.

 

Are you absolutely sure they were Brembo's? The reason I ask is because Brembo just started selling the 02/03 blanks within the past month or two.

 

The Raybestos Ceramic/Powerslot combo warped in no time for me. After talking to several Powerslot resellers I found out that they don't recommend Ceramic pads at all for the Powerslots. I just recently intalled Brembo blanks with Nismo pads and I have absolutely no noise and tremendous bite. Much better than the Powerslot/Raybestos combo I had previously.

 

Correct me if im wrong but arent oem pads ceramics, considering since when i replaced my pads the guy at autozone said these where like oems/ceramics

 

I just installed my cheapo made in China 20 dollar rotors with Hawk HPS pads, biatch stops on a dime. No warping problem will be here, if they do warp I'm going to get some VIS carbon fiber rotors.

 

Dude the Hawk Wps pads can we buy those locally somewhere here or we gotta order them online cause my brakes suck ***** man

 

They couldn't cut my rotors (cut once b/f) so I put Raybestos OEM rotors and Hawk HPS pads. Definite improvement, better bite and mor resistant to heat dissapation. I work my brakes hard and can tell a definite improvement.

 

This is my 4th set of Hawk HPS on the car so far (I have 130K miles) and all of them where ordered through Tire Rack. Rob just order them from Tire Rack, save yourself the hassle and pain. Tomek ordered up some HPS off Ebay and they send him 2 sets of rear pads- we found that out when the calipers where already off the car and his fronts where metal on metal. I had some stock Maxima pads laying around so we slapped them on the next day and he reordered the fronts.

 

www.importrp.com


Got them back in january or Febuary


I was talking to Matt Blemco about my situation. He proposed I try and heat up the brakes and burn off the pad material deposits on the rotor. I did 4-6 40-0 stops on a back road. I could see smoke coming off the pads. I let them cool off over night, and the next morning they felt a ton better.




James

 

So no one likes the Axxis MM pads with the oem rotors?