I have a 2010 SS and the Brembos are brake dusting really bad is this a common problem? The dust is coating the entire inside of the rim making it completely black. Also who makes good brake pads cause my rears are already squealing loudly(only 15k on it now)

 

Yes that dust is normal. Not just a cobalt issue either, all brembos.

but I have no idea who makes good pads for squealing performance. I buy Hawk HP+ pads for braking performance and they squeal like a freight train.

I know HAWK HPS pads are a step down in braking performance and a step up in squeal resistance but I dont know how they fair relative to stock because I've never bought them.

 

Yes, the Brembo pads will do this. They would cover my wheels in a week. The HPS pads would take a month easy to get the same amount of dust.

For the rears, check the inside portion of the rotor. If it is groved or gouged, they are toast. On mine, the slider pins were not even lubed up. They were bone dry causing my problems.

I went with Hawk HPS pads front and rear, and R1 Concept rotors to match. They have been a great combo on this car.

 

Damn you Dirty, looks like all of NE Ohio is on tonight!!! We posted at the same time on this.

 

ha!

 

At about 20k mine stopped squealing, so that's something to look forward to

 

HaHa the great life of owning a Cobalt.

Thanks for the help everyone I will probably look into getting new pads or go harass the dealership into giving me new ones.Lol

 

i was told the brembos squeal because they are high performance breaks, they do it bad in the wet....just because they are high performance, thats coming from a bulliten on GM

 

You generally have a choice between awesome braking performance with pads that can actually handle some light track abuse or pads that don't dust and don't brake as well. GM went with the great pads and I've been extremely happy with the fronts despite the increased dust. The rears are also a very good pad but have an extremely short service life and tear up the rotors.

If you want less dust and don't track the car you should be able to find quite a few other street-biased performance compounds, especially for the rear as the calipers and pad fitment is shared with quite a few other cars. Others might be able to make some suggestions as to what they've tried. I've had good experience over the years with Performance Friction, Hawk, Porterfield, and EBC for performance pads and each company makes pads biased towards street or pads for track duty although options for the front Brembos may be limited with some of the companies.

In the mean time one other thing you can try that should help is next time you have the wheels off for a tire rotation, clean them really well and apply a few heavy coats of a good wax to the wheel surfaces. This can help with cleaning and getting the brake dust off. With how big the wheels are and the space between the spokes it's pretty easy for me to wash and clean the interior surface of the rim without taking them off the car so the dust doesn't bother me too much.

 

I hope I'm not jinxing myself here but mine don't squeak at all. I'm not very nice to them, but they work damn good.

 

No squeak here either...front or rear. But the DUST is the *****. I'm going to try the EBC RED front and rear when I have to change em. Since I don't track the car, I'm willing to try these which should solve that problem. I think the Hawks dust more than the REDS. EBC REDS are combo ceramic/kevlar.

FROM EBC:

High Performance LOWEST DUST rating pads for Prestige imports and faster street driving.

There are TWO reasons our customers love Redstuff, First because they are the lowest dust pad we have encountered by reducing dust by 60-90%. Plus the minimal dust you see is very easily removed with a simple sponge wash as it contains no steel fibre particles as in ALL OTHER pads. Second they brake like an alligator right from cold (as good as Original pads or better) and just get better as they heat up.

This material is a KevlarŽ fibre based brake compound enhanced with ceramic particles. If you have previously tried EBC redstuff (pre-ceramic compound) this material is light years ahead. It lasts longer, it brakes better and is quieter.


Being a hard wearing pad, bed-in times can be as long as 1000 miles and drivers must be patient until the pad takes up the shape of their disc (brake rotor). This is a truly impressive fast road pad for repeated heavy braking.

It emits far less dust than semi-metallic pads and has been proven to stop a passenger car/sedan/sport compact/hot hatch 13 metres quicker than OEM pads from 100mph/160kph. Features EBC Brake-In surface coating which conditions rotor surface and accelerates pad bed-in. Nominal friction coefficient 0.5 with approx. 50% dust reduction.

 

mine only squeek when its raining, other than that there fine

 

Generally the harder you treat them the less they squeak. Its all about heat. Track pads are designed to operate at the higher temps they'd experience on the track to eliminate brake fade. Street pads are basically optimized for near-ambient temperatures and as the temp increases (i.e. braking from 120mph to 30 for a hairpin turn) fade makes itself present.

My Hawk HP+ pads dont squeak at all on the track.

 

God help you, if you decide to get anything from EBC. They shouldn't be on anyone's list. Ever.

 

I'll probably just replace the pads with the stockers when they need to be redone. I don't care about the dust really. It's just a bye product of a disk brake system. If you don't like the black dust you can always go with ceramic pads that have a very light grey dust. I'm sure someone makes a ceramic in a racing compound, it would probably wear faster but it would stop just as good. Ceramic dissipates heat faster anyways and is more tolerant of heat as well. Look at the tiles on the space shuttle, ceramic, I rest my case. They are pretty expensive though.

 

Ron - I tried the EBC Reds on the rear for a month, threw them away, never quit sqealing no matter what. YMMV. Went with Hawk HPS, but the stockers bite better, I lost some high speed stopping power vs. the stock pads.

Still Ferodo stock pads on the front Brembo's @ 52k miles.

 

Ok..thanks. Interesting..I know they need bedding in...but I'm sure ya did that. Maybe on the rear, you don't have an opportunity to properly bed em in? I'm pretty sure the fronts won't be a problem...they should dust LESS than HPS too. I do want a lot LESS dust though, so maybe REDS up front and HP CERAMICS in the rear?

 

EBCs are CERAMIC (with Kevlar) and they definitely dust less with a lighter residue. I won't race this car, so for street should be fine..at least UP FRONT. HP ceramics in the rear... based on *I AM BROKE'S* feed back for those.

 

I bedded the rears as best I could with the ebrake and foot brake at the same time to get some heat in them. Quiet for a day or two then started crying again but I'll admit it was cold out when I replaced the rears & rotors, Feb almost 2 years ago.

Not sure what I'll do next year, other than slotted rotors for the cold rainy days here but I do know I wish I had more stopping power at times. Just have to DD it and be able to stand it also. My front rotors are warped a bit at 53k miles and I missed the service bulletin until I was out of the bumper to bumper.

I was thinking of HP+, but IDK. I don't care about the dust really, I detail it weekly when I have time anyway, wheels & all.

 

I have stock pads on the front. I'm lucky to make it 3 days without dust coating my front wheels.

 

ill be lucky to make it a day witout them dusting up on stockers

 

You guys think we have it bad with the brake dust... I wonder what the ZR1 guys brake dust situation is like. They have carbon metalic pads and ROTORS. They must have brake dust hitting them in the face through the A/C vents.

 

UGH! I just washed my car yesterday and my front rims are already grey!!

 

I'm startin' ta think about the GREEN STUFF now...for street use.
If I do..I'll post how they do.