Powerslot rotors & hawk pads - Q.

[Half-cocked]

Hi all, I'm getting ready to do my front brakes (I got tired of spending hundreds of dollars on labor, for mediocre work.)

After searching and reading through the forum for brake information, it looks like a lot of members recommend Powerslot rotors and Hawk pads. Looking at tirerack's website, they sell several different types of Hawk pads in my Mounty's size; HPS Street, Ceramic performance, HP Superduty, and LTS Truck/SUV.

Should I go with the LTS, since they're apparently designed for truck/SUV use? Or would another pad give better braking? I have always been underwhelmed at my Mounty's braking performance, and now that my son's driving it, I really want to fix that.

This is for a '99 Mountaineer AWD/5.0L, and I use it for camper towing several times a year (the camper has its own brakes, but it still adds a lot of strain on the truck's.)

 

[my98nnj]

The Hawk pads are great, I run them on my Nissan. The only negative is they dust quite a bit. Save your $$ on the rotors and go with a blank. There really is no added benifit with slotted or any other machined rotor in a daily driver application. If you were on the race track, that's a different story. Hawk makes pads for heavy duty applications, check to see if they have one for the monty.

My .02 - I run a cheap ass $18 blank rotor from my local auto parts store and Wagner Thermo Quiet pads. The Ceramic pads have excellent stopping power, are quiet and don't dust much so my wheels stay clean. Been running them for about 1-1/2 years with no issues and great pedal feel.

Don't forget to change your brake fluid when you do a brake job. Brake fluid is hydroscopic by nature and degrades over time. Fresh clean brake fluid is just as important as good pads and a good rotor surface when it comes to your brakes performance.

 

[techieman33]

The Hawk pads are great, I run them on my Nissan. The only negative is they dust quite a bit. Save your $$ on the rotors and go with a blank. There really is no added benifit with slotted or any other machined rotor in a daily driver application. If you were on the race track, that's a different story. Hawk makes pads for heavy duty applications, check to see if they have one for the monty.

My .02 - I run a cheap ass $18 blank rotor from my local auto parts store and Wagner Thermo Quiet pads. The Ceramic pads have excellent stopping power, are quiet and don't dust much so my wheels stay clean. Been running them for about 1-1/2 years with no issues and great pedal feel.

Don't forget to change your brake fluid when you do a brake job. Brake fluid is hydroscopic by nature and degrades over time. Fresh clean brake fluid is just as important as good pads and a good rotor surface when it comes to your brakes performance.

Do you need the slots, probably not. But the reason I still reccomend them is they are a much higher quality rotor than what you'll get from the parts store, especially the cryo treated ones.

 

[my98nnj]

Cryo treated = Marketing 101

I've used the "high end" rotors on quite a few of the many cars I've owned over the past 30+ years and honestly, they never gave me any more life then do the $18 rotors from my local auto parts store. And I'm much happier throwing away an $18 rotor at 30,000 miles then an $80 rotor at 30,000 miles.

It's the pad that's really the heart. The rotor does nothing more the dissapate the energy in the form of heat. Rotors are cast iron and don't warp either. It's pad material transfer that causes the vibrations that eveybody attributes to warped rotors. And that is caused by choosing the wrong pad (heat range) for your application.

There's some really good reading material at stoptech.com. Look in the white pages area, there's some very interesting facts about brakes on their site including the "warped disk" myth. They explain in depth what really causes brake judder and other breaking performance issues.