Uneven wear of brake pads, bad?

[SlickNick112]

So what can I do about that uneven wearing on my brake pads? The left front wears faster that the right, and the rear barely get used at all. How can I even the wear out?

[Dean]

Front vs. rear...
A. Get a manual bias adjuster and become a brake expert
B. Buy Stoptechs which have less front piston area which shifts bias rear.
C. Live with it. This is common on most cars.

left vs. right is tougher... I have a huge varience in my rears, and am having the line pressures tested. Small ammounts of difference, especially for a car that has been tracked, and ABS used is not uncommon due to poor cornerbalance. If your car is cornerbalanced, left vs. right wear may depend on the direction of teh track or roads you drive. Cockwise or Counter...

[SlickNick112]

Originally Posted by Dean

Front vs. rear...
A. Get a manual bias adjuster and become a brake expert
B. Buy Stoptechs which have less front piston area which shifts bias rear.
C. Live with it. This is common on most cars.

left vs. right is tougher... I have a huge varience in my rears, and am having the line pressures tested. Small ammounts of difference, especially for a car that has been tracked, and ABS used is not uncommon due to poor cornerbalance. If your car is cornerbalanced, left vs. right wear may depend on the direction of teh track or roads you drive. Cockwise or Counter...

My left vs. right is noticable, but not significant. Thats a little soothing to know that front vs. rear wearage is common on most cars. It doesn't sound like anything major, I was worried because I have just put on new rotors (brembo slotted) and pads (PBR ceramic high performance). For whatever thats worth.

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Originally Posted by Dean

Front vs. rear...
A. Get a manual bias adjuster and become a brake expert

You don't exactly have to be an expert with the typical Tilton-style manual adjuster. It's just a knob, one way has more rear brake, the other has less.

[SlickNick112]

Originally Posted by AtomicLabMonkey

You don't exactly have to be an expert with the typical Tilton-style manual adjuster. It's just a knob, one way has more rear brake, the other has less.

Where might I find this knob? I would like to adjust a little bit.

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Originally Posted by SlickNick112

Where might I find this knob? I would like to adjust a little bit.

Tilton Racing

[Dean]

Originally Posted by SlickNick112

Where might I find this knob? I would like to adjust a little bit.

Turning the knob will not magically even out wear. In fact, unless you are very careful, you can easily make the car dangerous on the street attempting to even out wear.

Front brakes wear faster because under breaking, weight shifts forward. There is no such thing as a Physics adjusting knob.

The factory errs on the side of safety by biasing braking to the front to keep the car from swaping ends under braking.

You don't need to be a brake expert to adjust bias, but realize it adjust how you car handles under braking, it is not a wear distributor.

[Dean]

Originally Posted by AtomicLabMonkey

Tilton Racing

You would need a 2 channel for most subarus I think. The stock control has two ins, and two outs for the two cross channels.

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Originally Posted by Dean

There is no such thing as a Physics adjusting knob.

Heh. I'd like one of those...

I will say that OEM's seem to typically design a pretty front-heavy brake bias into their cars, more than is necessary for a driver with any amount of skill, in order to keep Suzy Homemaker (or Bob the Personal Injury Attorney) from spinning out in the rain. This leaves a margin that the more performance-minded of us can cut down on...

[SlickNick112]

Turning the knob will not magically even out wear. In fact, unless you are very careful, you can easily make the car dangerous on the street attempting to even out wear.

Front brakes wear faster because under breaking, weight shifts forward. There is no such thing as a Physics adjusting knob.

The factory errs on the side of safety by biasing braking to the front to keep the car from swaping ends under braking.

You don't need to be a brake expert to adjust bias, but realize it adjust how you car handles under braking, it is not a wear distributor.[/quote]

Thanks for the Physics lesson Dean, :wink: I understand it's more serious than just wanting to "even out the wear". I am just considering how much breakpad surface and pressure that I'm not using, and it could definately be more efficient. Thanks for the tips guys. It is definately appreciated, I'm still a little wet behind the ears when it comes to working on my car and understand how to get my car to drive like I want.

[sperry]

I typically replace my rear pads every other time I replace my fronts... 'course that's when autocrossing on stock brakes. I haven't swapped pads yet in the StopTechs... I will expect to see more even front/rear wear.

I've never really noticed a big left/right discrepancy.

[Kevin M]

I talked to Nate about bias adjusters on subarus a while back. You'd have to defeat and possibly even remove the ABS system to make it owrk. It's actually easier to deal with using MC piston size and front/rear brake torque changes with calipers.