Brake Pads for the Z4MR

buzyg

buzyg

Legend
 Cornwall
A couple of questions.

My brake pad wear light came on a few days back. I've done about 10 miles since. We have a gentle 70 mile hoon planned for Sunday and I doubt I'll have them replaced by then. Am I likely to damage the discs, if I take the Z.

I've done a little research tonight. My local BM stealer wants £220 fitted for front pads & sensor. Plus I've seen stuff on e-bay from £58-300 for the pads only.

What's the recomended pad for regular road use. I have the OEM CSL brake set up and I've never needed any more, not even on the odd track day. (Guess I drive to slow.)

Cheers BuzyG :driving:
 
The warning light usually comes on quite a while before all the pad material has been consumed so you'll probably be alright. However there are not wear sensors on every pad so conceivably some of the pads may be more worn than those with wear indicators. I would have a good look at the amount of meat left on the pads using a torch +/- a mirror. You can do this through the wheel or even take the wheels off.
The give away that it's time to stop driving is when you hear the sound of low flying aircraft when braking - this is the sound of the metal back plate rubbing on the metal of the disc. If you keep driving in this circumstance you will score the disc which may necessitate replacement if severe.
In terms of what pads to use, I found the OEM discs and pads more than sufficient for hard road use. Although the OEM pads worked fantastically on the track with fade only after a thorough thrashing, they didn't last long. I use my car on track frequently and needed more than I could get with the OEM setup so I uprated the fluid to ATE Superblue and fitted EBC Yellowstuff pads. These were also good on both the track and road but didn't last long. The surface of the pads often looked as if the friction material had started to melt by the end of a trackday. I had a catastrophic failure of one set of Yellowstuff pads whereby the friction material delaminated from the back plate on a forum meet :headbang: I went on to fit EBC Bluestuff pads which are sold as 'race only' and technically fall outside of EU regulations for road use. These are brilliant in terms of good function from cold on the road, they aren't noisy, and they give limitless braking on track without fade. Best of all the abrasive material polished out the scoring on the disc (although I suspect the life of my discs will be reduced using this material).
It doesn't sound as though you need more than OEM pads and I certainly be cautious of EBC quality control. I had bought the Bluestuff before the Yellowstuff pad delaminated otherwise I wouldn't have stuck with the brand. Now I have a dilemma as they work really well and are fairly cheap...
If you have any mechanical experience changing the pads yourself is a doddle and would enable you to hoon on with new pads on Sunday.
 
If you can check the disk thickness as well as you may have to change them at the same time.

Minimum thickness is stamped on the disk hub.
 
I can also vouch for Stoptech Street Performance pads. Just slightly better than stock stopping power but last well and are cheap.
 
Changed my discs and pads few weeks back,used redstuff pads and standard ate discs £400 for both,easy fitting and better braking,well happy.
 
Cheers guys. :thumbsup:

I took a look and there still seems to be a fair bit left. As they are still working pefectly, i'll do the run on Sunday and get them replaced before the next outing.
 
o,em pads are just fine for anything you are likely to chuck at them on the road, a bit dusty as we all know, dont pay too much attention to the min thickness stamped on the disc, those are there purely to enable the stealers to sell new brakes to as many punters as many times as they can. the discs on my old 3m were down to the min when i got the car according to the tech, i sold it 5 years later with 13k more on it, still no scoring and braking straight and true, still have the new oem discs and pads if anyone interested as did;nt let them go with the car., Sensible offers please. :thumbsup:
 
Its too late now but also remember that you need to fully bed in any new pad before they work to there full potential. I changed my oem pads for red stuff and the fluid for ate super blue but only did about 150 miles before the track day. The pads had not bedded in and still had some of the bedding in coating left on them at the start and were not that good until about the third session. By this time though the lack of cooling due to the design on the si ment that the fluid was starting to boil which then ruined the pads and the rest of the day. You may not have this problem on the M if there is better cooling.
 
mad4slalom said:
o,em pads are just fine for anything you are likely to chuck at them on the road, a bit dusty as we all know, dont pay too much attention to the min thickness stamped on the disc, those are there purely to enable the stealers to sell new brakes to as many punters as many times as they can. the discs on my old 3m were down to the min when i got the car according to the tech, i sold it 5 years later with 13k more on it, still no scoring and braking straight and true, still have the new oem discs and pads if anyone interested as did;nt let them go with the car., Sensible offers please. :thumbsup:
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The minimum thickness of the Z4MC's front brake discs is 26.4mm and when new they're 28mm. There's a total of 16mm of disc thickness with a 12mm gap between both discs for venting. So the minimum thickness has allowed a 10% loss of disc volume due to wear from past braking. Since "brake-fade" occurs when the braking system can no longer keep sufficiently cool, and since the volume of brake disc plays a huge part in this, then should you cause a serious accident, and the accident investigators find your brakes are below the minimum thickness, then, quite rightly, the finger will be pointed at you in the same way as it would when your tyres are below the minimum tread depth. It's not clever running brakes or tyres beyond their serviceable lifespan and paying for new "consumables" should be factored into the cost of ownership.
 
makes sense what you say, exdos, i never measured my thickness so was only going on what tech said, tho as i said never anthing but perfectly normal braking, certainly no fade, smell, graunching , or squealing, my point was brake changes are very easy money for garages which is why a lot of unscrupulous ones push them ahead of time, what i should have said was maybe measure them yourself before going ahead on their say so, one other point , that car went through five mot tests whilst in my ownership, no advisories, or mention of discs , they certainly never measured them, you would think if it was as crucial as you say then surely it would be a much stricter part of the mot test , as are tyres for obvious reasons. :thumbsup:
 
The BMW TIS specifies that new pads can be fitted if the brake disc is above the specified "minimum thickness" and run-out specifications. Therefore the "minimum thickness" is better described as "minimum thickness to fit the last set of pads". If one set of pads wears the discs down to just above this thickness (1.6mm of wear on every Recent BMW brake disc I have seen), then the maximum service life is nominally 3.2mm of total wear.

My Z4MR front brake discs were well under the minimum thickness after a single set of pads, at 72,000km. Somewhere in the region of 2.5mm of wear is what I remember when I measured them with vernier calipers, before replacing them.
 
I replaced my front discs when I fitted new pads and the old discs measured about 26.5mm. If these are still good for another set of pads, does anyone want to buy these at half price? :wink:
 
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