Brake pads are one of the more mysterious, misunderstood products that are going to go on your car. They&#;re also one of the most important. There are two main brake pad formulations you have to choose from when shopping for new brakes for your car. It doesn&#;t matter if you&#;re shopping for TRW, Akebono, Ferodo, or Centric brake pads, you will be presented with two main formulation choices &#; ceramic and semi-metallic. Each offers unique benefits over the other, and it can be a little confusing, so today we will talk about the differences between each to determine which brake pad is best suited for you and your car.
UNDERSTANDING BRAKE PADS
Before we get into the formulations, we have to talk a little bit about how brakes work. What they essentially do is convert kinetic energy, which is the energy stored in the vehicle going down the road from the weight of the car, into heat. That&#;s done by the brake caliper, pressing the brake pad onto the brake rotor. And the different formulations will all result in different performances at that point. Some are going to produce more dust, some are going to produce less dust. Some are going to have a better performance when the brake pad is stone-cold versus when it&#;s very hot, and some of them are going to offer more or less wear on the rotor itself.
So that&#;s one of the important things to kind of consider. A brake pad is a wear item, and you&#;re using it up as you&#;re using the brakes. A harder pad or a more abrasive pad is going to use up your brake rotor more quickly and wear that out compared to a softer pad. Brake pads are a lot like tires and there&#;s a lot of science and engineering that goes into them, but also a little bit of magic that comes together to produce the best quality product for you and your car.
SEMI-METALLIC FORMULATION
The most common types of brake pads are going to be semi-metallic and ceramic. The first brake pad we&#;re going to talk about today is going to be semi-metallic formulation brake pad. And as you would guess from the name, they generally tend to have a high metallic content, something over 30% of the total brake pad formulation.
Some of the more common materials that are included in a semi-metallic pad include iron, copper, steel wool and graphite. This is all bound together with a high-temperature resin. Now semi-metallic pads offer some pretty significant performance advantages over an organic pad.
First and foremost, compared to organic formulation, they are more firm material, they&#;re less compressible, which means you get more feedback and feel from the driver&#;s pedal, especially in heavier braking situations.
Additionally, the metallic formulations generally tend to offer an increase in braking performance as the temperature goes up, and they have a wide performance range, which means that they work well over a wider range of temperatures. So a semi-metallic pad can still offer very good performance from cold, but still offer more resistance to brake fade as they conduct heat well, keeping the brake system cooler. This is good for the longevity of your brake system. Because of this, they tend to be one of the more versatile brake pads that are out there, especially if you tend to do more aggressive performance driving.
What&#;s brake fade?
Brake fade is the temporary reduction of braking power due to the excessive heat generated from repeated braking. This occurs at high speeds or under high loads, like when you press the brake pedal too often while driving down a steep incline.
Semi-metallics also have some disadvantages. First and foremost, they tend to be dusty. They&#;re probably not as dusty as an organic material pad, but they&#;re certainly going to dust more than ceramic. They also tend to be a little bit harder on brake rotors. So essentially you&#;re going to be going through brake rotors more quickly. And if you&#;re utilizing the lifetime replacement guarantee, that may not be a big deal. But if you&#;re talking about the ultimate serviceability of the brake components, it&#;s important to consider, and something to think about.
Another one of the potential downsides of a semi-metallic brake pad is that they are more likely to squeal or produce noise than an organic pad. A lot of the semi-metallic brake pads that you&#;ll see tend to be more of a street track-type brake pad compared to like an OE or a genuine performance brake pad.
CERAMIC FORMULATION
Now let&#;s talk about a ceramic formulation brake pad. Ceramic brake pads are probably going to be one of the newest ones on the block which were developed in the s. They haven&#;t been around very long relative to semi-metallic formulations. And so they&#;re a little bit more of an unknown for a lot of people. Ceramic brake pads are generally made up of ceramic materials, bonding agents and resins to produce the actual stopping power of the brake pad, also with little copper or other metallic fibers that increase friction and heat conductivity.
Ceramic brake pads are very well known for being extraordinarily low dust. And the dust that they do produce tends to be very, very light and easily washed off. So that&#;s one of the main advantages of a ceramic brake pad is that it&#;s very, very low dust to keep your wheels clean.
The dust amount of ceramic pads (after 1,000km mileage)
Other than the advantage of producing a tiny amount of dust and very light-colored dust, ceramic brake pads tend to be a much more firm, not very compressible material. So similar to a semi-metallic, they offer a very firm confident brake pedal, which is advantageous when you&#;re talking about coming to a stop.
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Similarly, they tend to be very, very hard and long-wearing, which means you get a remarkable amount of life out of a ceramic brake pad, but conversely, it&#;s also very easy on brake rotors. So unlike a semi-metallic that&#;s going to chew up the rotors a little bit more, a ceramic is going to be very rotor friendly, and you&#;re going to get an extraordinarily long life out of both your rotor and your brake pad.
Lastly, with a ceramic brake pad, they generally will never make noise. And that&#;s not to say that they don&#;t vibrate because that&#;s what you&#;re hearing when a brake pad is squealing. It&#;s vibration noises and resonance of the brake pad in the braking system. With a ceramic, however, because the material is so lightweight, the resonant frequency is well out of the range of human hearing. So the chances of getting a squeak or a squeal out of a ceramic brake pad are pretty much zero. One of the things that are important to keep in mind with ceramic brakes is they do tend to be the most expensive to produce.
Sounds good so far? There&#;s always a compromise.
For all its plus points, ceramic pads are the most expensive option. Additionally, ceramic pads have less cold bite than semi-metallic brake pads, making them less effective in very cold weather.
What&#;s cold bite?
Cold bite is how good the friction level is when the brakes are cold &#; better friction means better braking.
Ultimately ceramics are the newest and most technologically advanced brake pads that are going to be found on a lot of cars today. And as the technology has increased and as the performance has increased, they become more of a viable option that wants to have the quality brake pad with very low dust that still offers good stopping power.
Now with the ceramic formulations, I would say that quality ultimately is going to matter here more than a lot of the others. A low quality ceramic brake pad is going to be probably one of the worst feeling brake pads you could ever put into your car. You may notice a complete lack of stopping power, especially when the brake pads are cold. So because of that, you always want to make sure that if you are choosing a ceramic brake pad, you want to use the best quality and the latest technology that you can.
brake pads dyno testing
And that leads me to talk about our Yijing Premium Ceramic formulation, we&#;re excited about this because as I said, technology and quality is extraordinarily important in a ceramic brake pad. And with the Yijing Premium Ceramic, we&#;ve been testing the formulation on Link Dynamometer testing equipment and then adjusting time and time again, to achieve the best braking performance. And we&#;ve been testing on our own vehicles with an in-car testing system for months before we introduced them to the website. Yijing has added a scorching process to all Premium Ceramic brake pads. This additional process creates a friendly braking layer to reduce the break-in period and increase stopping power from the initial stop. And we&#;ve been excited by the amount of performance that we&#;re getting out of these brake pads for everyday drivers, while still having the low dust and long-wearing advantages of traditional ceramic.
And with Yijing Premium Ceramic, there is an underlayer between the friction material and steel plate. It promotes better friction to plate adhesion and reduces vibrations caused by friction materials contacting the disc&#; minimizing noise. Another function is acting as a thermal barrier by minimizing the heat transfer from the pad into the caliper, reducing the possibility of the fluid boil.
CHOOSING THE CORRECT BRAKE PAD
Use this table to help you quickly compare each type:
FeatureSemi-Metallic PadCeramic PadCost&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;
Braking Power&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;
Lowest noise&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;
Brake pad wear&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;
Lowest dust&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;
Cold bite&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;
PurposeRacing, heavy-duty workload,
Daily street drivingDaily street driving
Remember, every brake pad has its own pros and cons, there&#;s not really one particular solution that&#;s going to be the best one for everybody.
Ultimately, your choice of brake pads depends on your driving habits, driving conditions, and purpose:
For regular daily driving, you could spend more on ceramic brake pads for their long lifespan and enjoy the benefits of quietness. Ceramic brake pads are sometimes more expensive than semi-metallic brake pads, but they pay for themselves in reduced maintenance and longer life, thereby making them less expensive to repair and maintain.
However, if you&#;re going to be doing lots of hard braking, racing, or driving heavy loads, the semi-metallic brake pad is your best option. These are also likely better for extremely cold climates as their braking performance is more reliable over a much wider temperature range.
So hopefully this post has helped to explain some of the mysteries and some of the differences between semi-metallic and ceramic brake pads.
If you have any questions about any of that, or if you would like a little advice about the best brake pad for a certain application, feel free to contact us, we can try to point you in the right direction. And of course, if you did enjoy the post, please share it on Facebook or LinkedIn.
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