Quote:
Originally Posted by rmorin1249
I have a Mercedes SL with AMG brakes. Lots of dust so I installed Power stop pads about a year ago. Reduced the dust by 90% and the color of the dust is much lighter so less visible. No noise, no clicks and no reduction in braking on the street.
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I changed away from BMW OEM brakes on my X3 and installed Akebono. Like you said, significantly less dust and the dust was a lighter color so what little dust they produced was hard to see. I was quite happy about that, which is the reason I changed to ceramic.
However, you said you did not sense any reduction in braking on the street. So I would like a bit more info on your experience and I realize you did it on a MB and not a BMW. For me, I immediately had to push on the brake pedal much harder in order to obtain what I felt was the same amount of stopping power, that is the ability to stop within the same distance as the OEM pads stopped me at the same speed.
I drove the car to the garage with the OEM pads and drove out with the ceramics so I was not calibrated in pedal force yet, I was still using the same pedal force as I had always used but there was no way the car was stopping in the same distance. The ceramics just didn't have that initial bite the OEM pads did.
Yes, stopping power was the same as with the OEM pads but required much more pedal effort to achieve it. Meaning that once I got used to the ceramics, I knew I had to press much harder on the pedal to get the stopping power of the OEM's and after a while, this became the new norm. This was mostly ok but I think if it were a panic situation, which I never had, would it stop in the same distance even with the increased pedal force?
Was this not your experience too? I wouldn't mind hearing from others on this topic as well because when I buy my next new BMW, I want to put ceramics on it right from the start.