Brake pads

[Swiss Tony]

A year ago I remember boasting that the front brake pads on my Picasso had lasted 92K miles.  I replaced them, and the new ones have lasted 9K!

I prefer the concrete ones that were there before rather than the buttery ones I replaced them with, and as I need to do the job again, does anyone know a decent brand that will last a bit longer?  The 'Countrylife' pads just are not up to the job.

I assume someone will also suggest I replace the disks while I am at it.  

Swizz

[Deleted User]

OEM - direct from your local Citroen garage.

I had a similar problem with pads on an Isuzu Piazza, back in the mid 90's
The genuine pads cost £80 a set, and only lasted about 15,000 miles with the way I used the car
The Ferodo pads only cost £25 a set, and only lasted 2,500 miles.

[Clive]

Try the GSF or eurocarparts places. They often offer a choice of OE, OE but in te manufactorors box (same stuff but a bit cheaper) or repro. I always try to get OE, ideally the cheapest box though.

[Brian 93957]

I recommend APEC we sell them and use them ourselves, even got staff whohave used them round the nurburgring with no problems and they last well and are made to oe standards.

[Swiss Tony]

Thanks for the advice.  Haven't got round to sorting anything out yet because I have more Bar exams this weekend and its been raining!

As I am studying, I am not using the car either, so it will have to wait a bit longer yet.

I think the last set were Mintex, but the disk was well dodgy, grooved and worn down on one edge, sloping by about 2mm from the centre to the outside, so I should be so harsh on the pads.  It wasn't all their fault.

Swiss

[heraldcoupe]

I have used Apec pads on a handful of different vehicles. In my experience they initially have decent bite and don't wear too quickly. However, after a few thousand miles I found they change their charactreristics, becoming rather less effective as they get glazed.

Cheers,
Bill.

[Deleted User]

discs in the state you say they are in im surprised you even got that mileage out of them, i think discs and pads next time is a must
h

[Nick Jones]

Most modern cars have very hard pads to extend the service intervals and the discs suffer badly as a result.  I've found on the various VWs and Audis we've owned over the last 15 years that you usually have to replace the discs with the pads.  Lucky they last 60 - 70K usually.

Nick

[willcolumbine]

Nick_Jones wrote:

Most modern cars have very hard pads to extend the service intervals and the discs suffer badly as a result.  I've found on the various VWs and Audis we've owned over the last 15 years that you usually have to replace the discs with the pads.  Lucky they last 60 - 70K usually.

I agree with this totally. I've driven VW's for ages and I've always found that the disks need replacing with the pads. Pagid are the OEM supplier for a lot of VW's and Audi's so that might explain it!

[ferny]

Could be worse. Popped over to a mate yesterday and saw his girlfriends car. She's not known to be the most car friendly... The whole off-side of it is covered in rust from when the pads needed replacing and she didn't bother. I can only guess that it got so bad that bits of metal from the pad (and disc?) sand blasted the side of it. It looked like it was covered in moss from a distance.

[Pete Lewis]

most  disc wear is due to environmental pads ,the balance of lack of asbestos is beaten by the chinese belting out loads of crap making cheap discs .  
but the braking forces on modern cars is much higher than back in the 70s80's frictions are greater, pad material more agressive and disc wear is the result,
sorry but if you get 2 pad changes to one disc your doing well what ever the make of car

Pete