I share your feelings about the mess that some pads leave....my MINI factory pads were horrible, you couldn't drive around the block without them turning black!
But when I switched to some fairly high end ceramic pads, within 5K miles I had brake pulsation in front. Never had it with the factory pads.....
Good semi-metalic pad material has run into the CARB. See what is available in Australia or NZ and import them.
In reply to TurnerX19 :
This is a point that I had never thought of. Makes a lot of sense.
Thinking about it, if everything is going to leave deposits when it gets overheated, there may be a reason to do that National Mod after all. Bigger rotors and more caliper pistons will, in theory, make it easier for the car to stop with less effort. And I'm definitely getting deposits and overheating/glazing (see previous posts in this thread). Bigger brakes that work with less effort might negate the whole pad material conversation a bit.
I ran Z23s on the fronts '17 Elantra Sport after I cooked the stock brakes at Road America. I had the on the car when I traded it in--felt like they were decent for the money...certainly braked as well as stock. I don't think that they were overly dusty either.
If I need brakes on the GT, based on what I'm seeing, they would be my go to.
I decided to actually LOOK at the rotors yesterday to see if I could see any weirdness. And yeah...
Running a finger over the surface, and it feels a little lumpy on all of them. The top two shots are the fronts, and you can see the spots on them clearly. They look overheated in person, too. When I swap the wheels, I will either get these cut or just flap disc the deposits off and see if it helps. I may still do the big brake mod, but if I could hold off on that, it would be preferable.
The dumb thing is, this car has pretty large front rotors at 12+". It only weighs 2900lbs. When it was new, I was actually impressed by how well they worked, but it hasn't felt the same in years.
Now, riddle me this: My Power Wagon weighs almost 5000lbs and stops fine with rear drums and 10" front discs. My old Mazda3 had 11" front brakes and stopped fine as well. I was running el cheapo Max Brakes drilled/slotted rotors and carbon ceramic pads on that most of its life. It's braking system is VERY similar to the Kia but with smaller rotors.
I don't understand why the Kia can't just work. On paper, it should be great! Why the pads keep leaving enough deposits to throw things out of balance is an annoying mystery.
Would adding cooling help this issue? I'm guessing it's not an over heating issue but if cooling would help I would slap some Boxster air deflectors on the control arms and see what happens.
I put Bosch blue ceramics on the back of my Subaru and have been really impressed. Just another budget option.
In reply to spandak :
Maybe, but I'm not sure. It might just be a "brake pads just suck now" issue. My wife's CX-50 has a slight pulsation coming down from highway speed too, although it's not as pronounced or consistent as my car. I used Dynamic Friction pads and rotors on that one too. And yup... deposits all over the rotors.
I know it sounds dumb, but I never had deposit issues with the Max Brakes slotted and drilled rotors I used on my Mazda3 for years. I only used those on the car because they were dirt cheap at the time, but they ended up being really decent brakes. They never had the cheap slotted/drilled cracking issues that you always read about. Maybe the slots helped keep the pads from leaving deposits? They don't have a set that fits my car, but Power Stop does make one, and I'd be willing to bet they are the same thing.
I have a 65k service (aka an oil change and look at fluids) to do in the next couple weeks. I'm planning on making the summer wheels switch at that time and taking a look at the brakes, my favorite activity! I plan on at least hitting all the rotors with a flap disc or similar and seeing if that helps the vibration/chatter issue since the rotors are pocked with deposits.
That said, I am 99% sure that I've made up my mind about doing the National Brake upgrade. I asked in a FB group if anyone else did it, and aside from the usual responses telling me to dump $600+ on EBC pads and multi-piece slotted rotors, a few people chimed in and said that they had the same exact issues I was having and doing the mod solved them. I priced it out, and I can get new Mando (aka factory OEM) calipers, decent blank rotors, and SEMI-METALLIC pads for around $250. That sounds like a bargain to me. The fact that they make a semi-metallic pad in that size is also appealing, and those pads are dirt cheap to boot compared to what's available for the stock brakes.
One guy sent me these pics to show just how much larger they are than the stockers:
That's quite the difference! The thing I don't get is why they didn't just do this to begin with. These cars have larger brakes than the regular Forte already. They spent time developing all sorts of GT-specific parts, like the stainless exhaust, multi-link rear suspension in place of the beam axle, and more. Why didn't they just bolt these on if they were going to go larger anyway? I don't get it at all.
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