Bendix CT-3 pads and Raybestos rotors PICS

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I install a lot of these pads and never had the problems you had.
I don't bother burnishing pads anymore, i just drive them easy for the first couple of hundred miles and they stop great. I think you may have glazed them in the beginning and it took some time to get through the hard glaze.

Pad compounds and rotor combination vary so much that IMO there cannot be a simple one size fits all bed in procedure.
I would guess your brake rotor combo possibly wasn't suited to the instructions and would probably have worked better from the start if you drove it normally.

From a discussion about BMW instructions
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The instructions that come with the BMW pads strongly advise against aggressive braking or "dragging" the brakes to speed up the bedding process for the first 125 miles. So, contrary to all that you've heard, you don't do anything special to bed in BMW OE brake pads. Just take off slowly, test the brakes to make sure the car will stop, and then go for a normal drive at reasonable (residential) speeds, using the brakes only as required, letting them cool down between uses. The instructions also point out that braking performance will be lower than normal until the pads are fully seasoned


My Honda CBR1100XX factory manual states new pads should be driven at normal speeds and avoid hard braking for 200KM.
Those instructions are for a power bike that needs lots of stopping power. Obviously they don't feel there is a need for burnishing or bedding.

Flame suit on
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I do both.. I bed the pads & rotors and drive the car a bit gentler for 300 miles. My paranoia seems to have paid off..
but your mileage will vary..
my method didn't work on the raybestos service grade pads with the same rotors (I didn't turn them). it stops quiet usually, but when things heat up they squeak. the front pads were installed by Ford before I got the car, and they turned the rotors. no squealing until they get hot. the pads are new and I'm to lazy to swap everything out..
 
Breaking in pads is one of those things that I've heard lots of talk about... but have seen very little evidence that it matters much. I've noticed that new pads generally don't stop as well as the ones that were just replaced- and I reckon that 'breaking in' new pads could shorten this effect some. But when it comes to long-term pad life and performance, I've just never seen any reason to believe that break-in procedure matters at all. How could it once the initial pad surface has worn away?

So when I install pads on my own vehicle... I just install the pads and drive normally. They don't work quite as well at first, so I just press the brake a little harder. After a couple days I don't notice any difference.

For other peoples' vehicles, I try to break in the pads a little just so I don't have to listen to them [censored] as much about the brakes (I also warn them that the brakes WON'T work as well for a couple weeks 'til they break in). But I don't think it matters at all in the long-run.
 
Originally Posted By: Trav
I think you may have glazed them in the beginning and it took some time to get through the hard glaze.


You know, I actually was thinking about this recently. It would explain why it took so long for the pads to stop well.

I pretty closely followed the Bendix recommended procedure (the 30-30-30 method recommended on their webpage)

I don't know why Bendix would recommend this method if it wasn't needed.

Maybe I stopped too aggressively during the break in?
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I read that and i have to wonder if normal driving doesn't closely duplicate what they are trying to accomplish anyway without any concious effort.
I can understand going the extra steps for racing application where they want to brake as hard and late as possible but these are daily drivers.

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Maybe I stopped too aggressively during the break in?


IMO i think that's a real possibility.

Edit: BTW these are really nice pads and i believe 100% they are made in Canada. Next time try them again without all the rigmarole.
 
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I'm with Trav and Onion that burnishing "OE" style linings is not really necessary and sometimes causes problems. I'm not trying to say I know more than Bendix but in my experience just normal stops or even easy stops burnish pads just fine and going out of your way to burnsih them with repeated hard stops can cause problems more than it helps.
 
I have Bendix CT-3 pads (D914CT) on my car for a little more than one year, the only complaint I have is too much dust than OE pads.
 
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Well, since this thread has been brought back from the dead, I guess I'll write another quick update.

These pads have just about 10k miles on them. They're stopping great with no noise. I will admit I can't comment on the dust, however. My car has hubcaps and I really don't care about dust enough to even notice.

I'm really satisfied with these pads and would install them on any other of my vehicles that needed new brakes. They offer good performance for the price, as far as I'm concerned. Plus, the aren't made in China. That's important to me, although I did have to go with Chinese rotors for this brake job.


However, the only thing I would say to a prospective buyer is go easy on the bedding in. You don't want to glaze them like I did.

Bendix is confusing, as far as what they recommend. This link recommends the 30-30-30 method I used. But I ended up glazing the pads.

On the same page, they also recommend this method, which uses only half as many stops.

Quote:
A series of controlled moderate speed stops (15-20 Stops from 30-mph w/30 sec cool down) is required to properly "burnish" or break-in a new set of pads. During this initial stopping period, the process of lining transfer from the disc pads to the rotor surface helps condition the rotor surface to properly seat the brake pads. All pads are cured and all pads need to be burnished.


Evidently, Bendix can't settle on one method to recommend. All I can say is go easy on them if you choose to use a break-in procedure.
 
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Long term update-

These pads have now been installed for 15 months, which has been about 20k miles of driving.

These pads have been performing great. I haven't really noticed much dust, but I'm not big on cleaning my wheels, so that's not a huge priority for me. But, I just went and checked and there's very little dust that I can see.

The stopping performance has continued to be very good, IMO.

I haven't experienced any noticeable issues with noise or vibration.

Overall, I'm very satisfied with these pads.
 
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Someone mentioned CT-3 pads in another thread, which reminded me to offer another update.

The pads continue to perform very well. I haven't noticed any vibration or noise and the stopping performance is quite good.

The next time I have the wheels off I'll try to remember to take some pics of how much meat is left on the pads.
 
Review update -

The Sonata just broke 100k miles, meaning these pads have about 35k miles on them.

They're still performing very well.
 
My CT-3 are performing very well on my Mazda6 too; great all-around braking wet/dry/cold/hot [they do have a bit better bite when they've warmed up but still better than stock]. I wish they were made in more applications [and don't quite see how they don't when there is a CQ-line pad available], otherwise my other go-to aftermarket pad would be Akebono ProACT followed by Raybestos AT pads.
 
45k mile update

These pads are still performing very well. I think the all-around performance is very good and I'm still very happy with the pads. I'd definitely buy them again.

I have noticed some dust on the hubcaps. But, I've never cleaned the wheels since I installed the pads, so it took 40k miles for a decent amount of dust to build up. That's not too bad, IMO.
 
I'm past 50k miles on these pads. I'm considering selling this car to a family member, so I'm giving it a good checkup to see if it needs anything. Part of that was measuring the front brake pads.

These CT-3 pads have about 5mm of material left.
 
Every time i've done brakes they always brake better after about 600 miles. I think it takes that long to really mate to surface of the rotor. I'm not sure how important bedding pads in is for a street car. A track car its probably important.
 
^^^need for bedding is related to braking capacity. Larger rotors and pads need some heat to get seated correctly and last much longer if bedded properly.

Smaller brakes like the tiny discs on econocars get plenty hot with just a bit of hard driving.

Bedding must vary by application...
 
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