Brakes Squealing......

[Midder]

Guys....

I recently had the discs and pads changed on No 142.

Have replaced front and back discs with genuine Renault discs (got these at a good price!) and decided on some 'uprated' pads.

Went for some from K Tec - Ultimax brake pads.

The brakes now work so much better (as you'd expect) however, i now have a horrendous squealing sound when the brakes are applied!

Any suggestions/ideas?

Chris

 

[g40steve]

Did you fit them??

When you replace genuine with non genuine pads you may need to remove the shims?

Did you apply copper grease?

May be a characteristic of the pads you have chose #-o

 

[Midder]

they were fitted by a local garage (citroen!)

unsure if copper grease was used....i am correct in thinking this would be applied to the rear of the pad before fitting to caliper.....??

 

[Cue]

Steve's covered the main issues most have, i've never used those pads so am not sure of their application - are they race, fast road, road etc?

If the shims have been removed and they've been fitted with plenty of copper grease then i'd say they are probably race pads = higher operting temp, firmer, coarser materials - more noise.

If they've been fitted correctly then it'll be a characteristic of that pad as so you can't do much about it.

 

[hoolio]

Copper grease at each "end" where the shims would have been.

 

[Gordon]

I put a set of Rally/Race Mintex pads on my road going 106 Rallye with new standard OEM discs. At slow speeds I get squeeking too, particularly on short journeys and around town.

When they are 'cold' they will squeek. Once up to a good operating temp the noise goes. I don't think there is much you can do about it, bar braking hard everywhere, which is totally unneccessary.

Some journo's once noted that a new BMW they were testing had very squeeky brakes and the other demo cars they didn't drive didn't. When they got hold of one of the 'standard' cars they said there was a significant difference in braking ability. Pushing them to the consulsion the pads had been swapped for more racy items on the test car.

The Mintex were also put on with CopaSlip, it's to ensure they release when very hot, grease doesn't touch the disc/pad surface and will not stop squeeking. CopaSlip is great for wheel nuts too. Particularly for rallying or trackdays. If you need to change a wheel in a hurry with very hot discs and wheels you can pretty well gaurantee the nuts will not have ceased on if you've used CopaSlip.

 

[Midder]

Thanks for the advice guys.....

There was quite a substantial amount of brake dust on the pads (i assume this is due to the 'wearing in' period) Have since cleaned the pads and coppa slipped the backs.......this seems to have cured the problem.

Thanks again

Chris

 

[vamos]

Performance pads are always a bit noisy, the better performing carbon metallics especially so, but apart from applying copper grease to mitigate it, there is not much you can do. You have to decide whether the better performance is worth it to you. I tend to find that the noise dies down a bit after your first track day, as the pads get well bedded in, but it is not always the case.

The pads will also eat your discs faster, so better brace yourself for that. :wink: