Exactly. You've been right all along while I was hoping beyond hope that there is an intelligent way to select a good/better/best brake pad.
You were right. I was wrong.
If you have two pads in your hands, or two on the net, you can't make an intelligent choice between them, other than to know if they're the same or not, and to know who made them, and to know what their cold and hot friction coefficients are.
That's it.
Each pad can be different - but you have no way of knowing that from the pad itself.
Nobody complained about fade in that one report we have, did they? I don't think we have any better "fade" test than the Chase value for hot friction (which was E or F depending on the pads tested).
So, while fade is important - it's a useless criteria since we have no way of knowing the fade.
It's just silly to bring up all the things that *can* happen if you have no way of choosing between them when the pads are in your very hands.
I don't disagree with you that two pads can be vastly different, but you have no way of knowing anything other than their tested friction, their manufacturer, and whether two pads are exactly the same material.
That's all you've got since brands are almost meaningless (e.g., PBR, Axxis and Metalmasters are the same company) and semi-metallic/metalic/ceramic marketing is even more meaningless.
All well and good, but it's like predicting that a baby will become the president of the United States.
Let's just agree to disagree since you don't seem to realize what I know from talking to the Axxis marketing guy that the word 'ceramic' is a bullshit marketing term.
Do you think I don't call these marketing guys up? Do I seem like someone who doesn't ask pointed questions?
Ceramic is complete and total marketing bullshit. The marketing guy told me himself.
(Yes, I see the difficulty of position that puts me in.)
Let's agree to disagree. You believe in marketing. I don't.
I believe in specifications.
Let's agree to disagree.
You think price has some impact on performance. I will prove to you that I can show exact same products with different branding but the exact same price.
Everyone loves a number-line decision, whether it's good/better/best of metallic/semi-metallic/ceramic or $10/$20/$30 or 3-year/4-year-/5-year warranty, but none of that indicates a better or worse object.
Only specifications do, and we just don't know much about the spec other than who made the pad, the code for the exact formulation, and the friction.
Everything else is bullshit.
Price is an indicator of demand only. Demand is influenced by a shitload of factors. You know that. I know that. Let's not argue it. That's what Economics 101 was for, and I already took that and passed it.
If you truly know the "hardness", then of course it matters. But you have no way of knowing the hardness. Do you?
I think I do understand how disc brakes work, but we can discuss what you think I don't understand.
What I know is that your energy of movement has to be converted into something else, most notably heat. Lots and lots of heat.
Yup. Pad deposition. Something about covalent bonds making and breaking under the heat of braking, where the breaking of the bonds elicits heat.
It gets complex HOW the heat is generated (it's not just 'friction'), but the end result is heat. Lots and lots of heat.
The Ameca engineer already explained the burnished pads that the Michegan study used where he said it was to get rid of the volatile gases that come out of the first few heat cycles.
Yup. We all know how to property bed our brakes. I doubt many shops do it though, because it requires a lot of room and a few very hard almost stops where, if there is traffic, it ain't easy to do.
I'll wager that few, if any, shops properly bed the pads. But you'd have that experience because I've never been to a mechanic.
NEVER, and I mean NEVER leave your foot on the pedal after a hard stop! Everyone knows this, so I know you know this. It's the worst thing you can do, unless you love to have judder every few thousand miles as that ped deposition collects more pad over time.
I never understood why, but once a pad print, always a pad print. And it only gets worse.
Unless you re-bed the brakes - which everyone knows - so you're preaching to the choir on even brake pad deposition techniques.
Yes. But. I have no good way of knowing a quality pad from a not quality pad. So it's moot.
It's like me picking out the best students in a class based on whether they wear glasses or not.
It's significant in one thing. Pedal pressure. If pedal pressure is your gig - then it's significant. If pedal pressure isn't your gig, then it's not significant.
The pedal pressure changed about 100%, from roughly less than ten foot pounds to less than twenty foot pounds in the lower-speed tests for example.
What's 10 foot pounds? Dunno when it's pressing on a pedal, but if that's important, then you have to buy a police cruiser and put those pads on it - because it doesn't tell you anything about your car unless it's a police cruiser.
Yup. We agree. There is no useful data other than the AMECA code and even that isn't meant for the consumer.
Knowledge is dangerous. Logic is dangerous. Thinking is dangerous.
Having someone else do all that for you, is dangerous. The mechanic doesn't give a shit about you or your brake pads.
All the mechanic cares about is your money, and getting as much of that as possible, in the least time possible, so he'll skip steps like you can't believe.
I'm on car forums where there are complaints galore about mechanics skipping half the steps in anything because they don't give a shit about anything but money.
The only way to do it right is to do it yourself, is my motto.
You can disagree (and you almost certainly will), but you can't disagree that I'm trying to make an intelligent decision on which brake shoes to buy, and that I probably know them as well as any mechanic who *thinks* he knows them - but he doesn't - because he can't.
Nobody can but the guy who submitted them for their Chase test.