markus_UK

Greetings all.

Have a MY04 WRX PPP - just coming up to a year old. Its done 16500 miles. At its 10,000 mile service the garage said I needed to watch my brake pads ( what has the wife been doing?). Anyway I have noticed a slight squeal developing and I have a feeling I need to change them before the discs get damaged.

I have check the front pads - i.e the ones that you can see from looking through the wheels. It looks like there is about 3-4 mm left on each - is that OK if I drive carefully for another week? The rear pads hardly look worn at all.

Would the 3-4 mm on the front pads (which I can see) be representitive of the front pads on the otherside of the disc (which I don't think I can see unless I take the wheel off?).

Any idea how much a new set will cost? A brake pad is a brake pad is a brake pad as far as I know. Is this time to ask the garage to fit a different make or just stay standard - i.e. does it REALLY make that much difference?

Any comments / advice would be very helpful.

cheers

Mark

gsm1

I'm not a scooby driver but if the standard make of brake pads have been fine for your driving style then I'd stick with them.
The wear on one side isn't necessarily representative and most times when I've changed pads they can vary greatly both either side of the car and either side of the disc, even one side of the pad can be far more worn than the other end.

tath

take the wheel off and have a look at the other pad??

and brake pads are not all the same - i put some cheapass motor factor pads on (30 quid) as a stop gap til i get 4pots, and one hard press will generate fade and clouds of smoke

Buckrogers

2 mm and you should be looking to go careful and get the brakes sorted ASAP.

A good set of pads can vastly improve braking performance.

Even brake pad wear = depends on the calipers. You have "Subaru 4 Pot" calipers. Two pistons on each side pushing one pad against the disc. Wear on this type of caliper should be even. Other calipers will only have a piston on one side pushing one pad. The other side is a trailing pad and often wear of the two pads is uneven.

EBC Redstuff Ceramics have been getting good reviews by many owners. Try searching this forum.

For your car, Ceramics are approx £90 all in, including delivery to mainland UK. See promo at the top of this page.

HTH

Buck
http://www.ebcbrakesdirect.com/

powerman1

Japanese standard brake pads have a scraper fitted and will make a scraping sound when the pads need swapping..mine have done 20k and have a least another 1k left in them and they have had a lot of local stop/start use but no noise yet.Just had the 20k service and was quoted £150 including labour for standard fitpads(front)..just bought some EDC's at £82 S&W Bradford including vat reds ceramics 31200c.
powerman