I would recommend everyone file a complaint with the NHTSA to force a recall:

http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/ivoq/index.cfm

 

For what? Brakes that dont last as long as you want?


ROFLMFAO

 

stock contis went 28k?

wow!

 

For brakes (rotors AND pads) that are wearing out prematurely when used normally and if the dealership refused to replace them under warranty. Even Ford clutches are generally covered under a 1 year / 12k warranty as a wear item so long as they are not abused.

Bottom line is that just complaining about them on Cobaltss.net isn't going to do anything - file a formal complaint with NHTSA. If they get enough complaints they may ask GM to do something considering the government is now backing up GM and Chrysler warranties, either that or it could put pressure on dealerships to fix the problem.

At this point, I am ready to order Hawk HPS pads to swap out the rear pads as soon as I take delivery of my factory ordered 09 SS/TC. I do not want do dance with the dealership if they're not going to permanently fix the problem, been there done that.

 

For people experiencing premature wear leading to pad and/or rotor failure (what I'd consider under 10k miles) I might see filing a formal complaint. Or if there is a hardware defect such as a defective caliper or braking hardware that caused a failure, but I doubt something like my case would even be considered. I have to take my car in to get a couple things checked and I'm going to mention that the inner rear pads wore down very quickly and the rotor is ate up but I don't think or expect it to be replaced.

Should a set of rear pads last only 28k miles under nearly all highway driving with no severe braking? Even with a good performance/race pad I'd expect longer service life under those conditions, but brakes are a wear item and we do have a very capable braking system stock. I guess I could throw a set of "lifetime warranty" pads from the part store on my car and have them last forever, but they'd still eat up rotors and worse case do like what happened to another one of my cars recently, they stop so poorly they can't generate enough stopping power to activate ABS in a panic stop.

 

I was referring to the brakes that were prematurely wearing out or causing excessive grooving of the rotor, which seems to be common on the SS/TC. 28k miles is pretty decent for factory pads.

FWIW I now recall something about GM and Ford OEM brakes causing grooves in the rotor. The dealership wouldn't replace them under warranty if the grooves weren't a certain depth, although you could visually detect that something wasn't wearing properly. That is why I'm a big proponent of filing the complaint and/or fixing the problem yourself.

 

I dont expect much from GM after buying this vehicle, it seems they will do anything to avoid fixing my problems, especially with the rear brakes/rotors. Oh, by the way if you call the GM customer service number you'll get someone in MEXICO!!! The first person I talked to didnt even know what a rotor was!!! Hmm and they wonder why they're in trouble now... :\

 

THANKS!

 

I submitted mine!!

 

From what I have read, the OE rear pads are ceramics. These can chew up rotors very badly. I am thinking about just going with OE replacement semi-metallics for the 08 Solstice. There are too many inconsistencies with the reviews of Hawk HPS/Ceramic pads to convince me to give them a try.

 

x2

 

Two of them are nearly done (the ones that saw most of the nearly 100 passes at the track) but the other two still have some decent tread. With a little better rotation I probably could have got 30-35k, but again, that's a ton of highway driving. This will be the third set of OEM ContiSportContact family of tires I've had on new cars (two SVT Focus and the Cobalt) and I've been pretty happy with these new ContiSportContact 2. The original tires made a ton of noise when they got near the end of their service life but the 2's have remained a lot quieter and still do good in the dry and great in the wet.

I'm not upset with the brake wear, but it really is pretty poor to be experiencing this much in so little miles considering my type of driving. With how the inner pads wore I'm going to check out the guides and caliper/parking cable but won't be using factory pads on the car again and see what the dealer says when it goes in for a couple other small things I've been meaning to get looked at.

 

I couldn't wait, my rears where so bad I gone a head and ordered new rotors and pads

 

Are the Hawk HPS pads pre-burnished? I heard that if they're pre-burnished the bedding process is unnecessary.

 

Mine are starting to wear out Im at 9000 km's

I might get one replacement from GM if possible but really I think I might just spring for something aftermarket.

The rotors are **** and warp, the front pads seem to work well on the roadcourse I got NO fade which was extremely impressive. But really aftermarket could perform better, and I hate going to the dealer.

 

At around 8,000mi, I could hear a slight metallic sound while cruising at 30mph with a road that has fences and some buildings along it. It was relatively cold (40F) and I was in denial of it first. I put the car on a lift, removed the tires and inspected all pads inside and out. Other than the visually disturbing grooving on the rear rotors, all pads were wearing relatively evenly.

Crossing my 13,000mi point, I again heard the same high-pitched metallic sound in identical conditions. Upon inspection, while the inner rear pads are still serviceable (5mm-ish) they do seem to be wearing slightly quicker than the outer pads (around 6-7mm-ish).

Anyone who has replaced the rear pads and / or rotors, which set did you choose, what conditions have you put your car through, and what is your overall experience as compared with the OEM pads and / or rotors?

 

My vehicle has 790 miles on it, and the drivers rear rotor is deeply scored on the outside of the disc (havent looked on the inside yet). Those are mostly highway miles and I've never panic stopped or anything like that.

My Volvo used to do this **** too.

 

The Volvo S40 uses the same rear pads. I've seen a Solstice with grooved rear rotors as well, but the S40 in our parking lot was fine as was the Mazda3 (all use the same type of rear pad config).

Update: Notice I said pad config and not pad material.

 

I replaced the stock rotors (all that is available) due to severe grooving and put rear EBC Redstuff pads on at ~9k miles for a few thousand miles. (The oem pads were wearing fine on mine too) Redstuff wore fine and the rotors looked fine & smooth but I had squealing & loud howling from them at low speeds.

Replaced the EBC's with Hawk HPS pads in my sig for the last 1k miles or so I think. No issues with them and I'm very pleased.

My driving is 95% interstate BTW, no panic stops...well, maybe 1 or two.

 

All these cars use the same shape pad, they dont use the actual same pad, IE the Solstive and the Volvo use a different pad compound, the Solstice has a leading brake setup as opposed to the trailing setup on the TC and I believe the Volvo has a dust sheild, all of these difference contribute to the very different rear brake wear on these cars. I have yet to see a Solstice with rear brake wear anywhere near as severe as the TCs. My wifes Mazda 3 has almost 40k miles on the rear brakes, and they have less grooving than some 4k mile TCs Ive seen, the pad is totally different, theres virtually zero visible metallic content in the Mazda/Volvo pads.

 

Car & Driver's Ask Kafka actually answered a question re: trailing or leading caliper positions and said it had no effect on braking performance or wear. It was mainly done to accommodate space claim for chassis components. As an example, my 2000 Crown Vic has 1 trailing rear caliper and 1 leading rear caliper.

I understand the friction material might be different, but let's not forget there are only a few manufacturers of brake pads (Wellman makes the Hawk brand pads, but they also make pads for other brands as well). BPI made friction material for a variety of brands, such as Raybestos and AC Delco.

I've seen some Solstice rotors with nasty grooves but not many.

 

I guess that is the price we pay for good braking performance but GM needs to make a harder alloy rear rotor otherwise we will be replacing the stock rotors every few years. We need aftermarket rotors or at least pads to help slow the wear down.

 

Brake caliper location can absolutely affect brake wear(it can affect vehicle performance as well but thats a completely different and very deep topic) if it places the pad in place to have road/airborne debris to collect on it. This is exactly why GM came out with backing plates for the front brakes of the Balt, the trailing position allows crap to collect on the edge of the pad more easily and get ground in. Compound is also a huge factor, I can tell you that the TC pads and Solstice pads ARE NOT made by the same company. And the replacement pads for the TC arent made by the same company os the OE ones either as far as I can tell.

 

Hmmmm.....My dealership has the wrong part number for our rear brake pads....... They found out that our rear brakes are the same as the SAAB 9-3 aero.....so they got that part number and got them for me....

 

I'm looking forward to hearing about your experience with these pads after you have more mileage down. For now, I'm probably going to stick with an OEM / OEM similar pad and rotor combination when it comes time for a replacement, until I read up more on other combos.

I've seen the Porterfield brand mentioned, specifically the R4Ss by z06fun.( https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/show...73&postcount=8 ) A week or two later, I saw a Laguna Seca write up about using these pads as a track-day replacement for the OEM pads on a 2007 Mazdaspeed 3 (July 2007 Road and Track). Something else for us to consider maybe...