I toasted a set of hawk blues at CMP in 1 weekend. i used them with a brand new set of blanks from auto-zone. after the car had been parked in the garage for the week i noticed brake fluid on the floor. my calipers were shot also,, they were the stock ones with 150,000 miles.

I thought i would have gotten more than 1 weekend out of a set of pads that cost $140

i will be trying carbotech Xp10's at Road Atlanta

 

Did you bed them in really well? If you don't get the blues bed in extremely well at tracks with heavy breaking zones, you'll eat the pads up quickly!

 

I bedded them in the 1st session of the weekend, started in the back to make sure i did them properly..dont know what happened, they fell apart when i took them out of the caliper. bled the brakes at the track to try and get better pedal feel.

 

thanks for posting, i was about to order a set, but now will look for an alternative

 

I have never had problems with Blues, and I've never had one come apart on me. I don't know what caused your problem, but perhaps contacting Hawk might shed some light on the situation. Good luck.

 

i forgot to mention that the blues also killled the new set of rotors, they were blanks,, anyone have any suggestions on what rotor i should be getting to run with the carbotechs. I will contact Hawk today..

 

XP10's with autozone blanks are awesome! You shouldn't have that problem.

 

just for the folks who dont know; CMP is an incredibly hard track on brakes.

i've never been there when i didnt have some kind of braking issue.

the only time i have crashed into a competitor in a brake zone was at CMP (sorry, sam lockwood!).

just fyi!

todd

 

Hmm ... I ran Blues on my H4 teg for almost a year and only went through 2 fulll sets of pads and rotors. Our tracks aren't SUPER hard on brakes, but they put them through the paces. I wonder if your calipers are really to blame. It sounds like there is an issue there. I've never heard of a pad breaking the caliper, but I've heard of it being the other way around (stuck caliper, whatever). I'd say your experience with the Blues was not common. That said, still I'd recommend the Carbotechs or Cobalts over the Blues. I'm still running the Cobalt Spec VRs and love them, but they don't make them anymore. I'm waiting on my first shipment of the XR2s, so we'll see how those do. The Carbotechs are great also, but I don't think they last quite as long as the Cobalts and the VRs stop just as well or better than the XP10s in my experience.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ZUL8R &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I bedded them in the 1st session of the weekend, started in the back to make sure i did them properly..dont know what happened, they fell apart when i took them out of the caliper. bled the brakes at the track to try and get better pedal feel. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Hmm, this makes me wonder now.

How exactly did you bed them in? When I bed them in on the track, they don't nearly seem to work as well.

I've been using Hawk blues for 4-5 years and I have also tried the Cobalt B's. The blues were far superior in the braking zones, but do tend to eat through rotors.

They are a great pad, but I'm sure there are better ones out there!

 

You might have been operating outside of the temperature range of the pads causing premature wear. Could have been too hot from what it seems like. What car? What size rotors? Do you brake too much? Maybe you need ducting.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by HapaHaole &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">. What car? What size rotors? Do you brake too much? Maybe you need ducting.</TD></TR></TABLE>

98 civic DX coupe, stock size rotors, blanks from autozone, i dont think i brake too much, the civic is a momentum car i did have some mini ducting hooked up..

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by FlyZlow &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Hmm ... I ran Blues on my H4 teg for almost a year and only went through 2 fulll sets of pads and rotors. .</TD></TR></TABLE>


then you weren't going fast enough or braking hard enough....there is no way brake pads should last anyone more than 3 or 4 weekends!!!!

 

haha yeah chad is suggesting that you were operating under the temp range where things can wear more rapidly. Those things like some heat!

 

That has to be a fluke, or like previously mentioned, the temps were off. After wasting money trying all the flavors-of-the-month, I'm back to Blue's. Yes, they eat rotors for lunch, and yes they dust a lot, but I don't see where this is an issue whatsoever. Rotors are cheap and dust wipes off. The one thing with Blue's I never have to worry about is brakes.

My experienced $.02

 

he went through two slightly used rotors saturday and two brand new ones on sunday. The pads were more than half worn after the weekend and two sets of rotors were trash.

On xp10s I would get 3-4 weekends out of a set of pads and rotors. Maybee its just me but I dont like to buy more parts than I have to.

 

Since I no longer have to worry about offending my friend Matt, here's some XP10's after one weekend. This is my third and last set of XP-anything's.

That's one, 10 minute practice to bed-in,
One 10 minute qualifier
One 15 minute qualifier
One 25 minute sprint

 

John,

that is unfortunate on your experience with Carbotech. But I learned that with every company or brand you can find someone that dissatisfied with their product. NAme it Carbotech, Cobalt, or Hawk in this particular thread.

In my experience, all leading brake pads manufacturer make good pads and have their advantageous and dis-advantageous. Some fit certain driving style than others.

Since 2002, I've tried so many different compound of brakes, that different people recommended me. Tried different compound of Hawk (blue, HT8, HT10), PFC (90, 93, 97, 01), Mintex, Ferodo, you name it, all in the quest of finding the best. To me, Carbotech has been the one that work well and suit my driving style.

I've been using Carbotech almost exclusively since 2005 and very happy with them. I could not find anything better to me, that finally in 2007 I went to Carbotech and get their sponsorship.

Sure people will say that I'm bias. Maybe I am, but I'm bias because I truly believe in the product. Which is the case for all my sponsors. I only approach them because I believe in their products and each one of them contributed to my success in racing.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by johng &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Since I no longer have to worry about offending my friend Matt, here's some XP10's after one weekend. This is my third and last set of XP-anything's.\</TD></TR></TABLE>

Those still have a good weekend left on them! (the backing plate is my wear indicator.. they still stop just a little hard on the rotor that way)

If you ask my DC2, all brake pads suck. Spec VR suck the least.

 

I have blues and vato zone rotors and have had no problems.. I and do A-Lot of hero braking..lol

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by johng &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Since I no longer have to worry about offending my friend Matt, here's some XP10's after one weekend. This is my third and last set of XP-anything's.

That's one, 10 minute practice to bed-in,
One 10 minute qualifier
One 15 minute qualifier
One 25 minute sprint

</TD></TR></TABLE>

x2, same thing happened here. Called them up to complain, pretty much got a "sorry, you must have bed them in wrong." Went back to Hawk Blues and never looked back.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Andrie Hartanto &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">John,

that is unfortunate on your experience with Carbotech. But I learned that with every company or brand you can find someone that dissatisfied with their product. NAme it Carbotech, Cobalt, or Hawk in this particular thread.

In my experience, all leading brake pads manufacturer make good pads and have their advantageous and dis-advantageous. Some fit certain driving style than others.

Since 2002, I've tried so many different compound of brakes, that different people recommended me. Tried different compound of Hawk (blue, HT8, HT10), PFC (90, 93, 97, 01), Mintex, Ferodo, you name it, all in the quest of finding the best. To me, Carbotech has been the one that work well and suit my driving style.

I've been using Carbotech almost exclusively since 2005 and very happy with them. I could not find anything better to me, that finally in 2007 I went to Carbotech and get their sponsorship.

Sure people will say that I'm bias. Maybe I am, but I'm bias because I truly believe in the product. Which is the case for all my sponsors. I only approach them because I believe in their products and each one of them contributed to my success in racing.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I agree. Someone will always have problems with a product. I had the same issue as johng and called up to complain. I wasn't that pissed. Stuff like this happens. Make it up to me and I'll give you another chance. It was how they handled it that made me say never again. We had exclusively used Hawk Blues and found them to work great for our application, but wanted to try some XP10's to see how they'd do. We had much the same problem as johng, they were toasted in no time. I called up Carbotech and they basically said "sorry, you must have done something wrong". We had run 4 seasons with Hawk Blues with no issues whatsoever. We bed them in properly, I know that for a fact. Ever since went back to Blues and have never looked back.

Blues have worked great for me in many applications. They're my first choice for a race pad unless I get some others for free to try.

s

 

stevel and johng. What car, caliper, and rotor were you using when you destroyed the xp10?

A few years back I bent the backing plates one set of xp8s that I had worn out about that thin but the other 10 sets since have been great since then.

have you changed the brake setup? what pad and rotor life are you getting with the blue?