Premature brake fade
 

My 98S Impreza Turbo's brakes fade v. quickly. Is this a common problem? What causes it? How can I (most cheaply) improve things?

BTW: I noticed that the brake fluid reservoir cap said to only use Dot 3 fluid. Surely Subaru don't use Dot 3 anymore(?)

You`ve probally got 2 pot calipers. These are very poor brakes anyway. Best to upgrade to 4 pots off of later car or sti.

The fronts have 2 pots on the inboard side of the caliper. I accept that 4 pots should be better, on the basis that pad to disc surface will be bigger, but 2 pots work ok on other cars - at least as heavy as the Impreza. And I really don't have to work the Impreza brakes v. hard at all in order to get the pedal to sink. This can't be right.

try sum uprated pads to help combat fade, they wont do muchh for extra gripping force but they will give more consistent results

IE: you might get 15 hard stops before fade as apposed to 1 hard stop (mine was the same)

Glad to hear that it's not just my car - as you say, after one hard stop the pedal sinks at the next application of the brakes. If it were 15 hard stops, I'd be laughing. Any recommendations on what type of pads to go for? EBC Yellow stuff? Mintex?

Cheers.

A bleed with some decent fluid may help a bit aswell, won't cure it, but should help a bit!

Any recommendations? Dot 4? Dot 5?

5's better than 4, higher boiling point!!

count yourself lucky my car came with a 276bhp engine and 2 pot brakes from the factory LOL

i fitted red stuff pads and sum new grooved/drilled discs they dont give more grippy power but its a lot harder to get them to fade compared with the standerd stuff i had

and i dont go through 3 sets of pads in a year anymore

Wow! Red stuff! I thought that was more of a track day/race pad - with poor cold braking performance(?)

Thanks.

If you're sticking with the two pots try some dot 5.1 from Halfords- £10 will fill your system- if you don't know how to bleed them get the system drained and re-filled.

Pads- try Mintex 1144 for starters as they'll probs be well matched to your calipers.

Simon;)

PS the new Red Stuff ceramic are a fast road / light track day pad, warm up and perform pretty well.

Thanks Simon.

Agree with RRH, OK once there warmed up after a few stops, however not so good on short, slower journeys so take care !

very welcome ;)