Brake pad warning

The brake pad warning came on yesterday, no big deal with the use my car has received but I thought I would mention the event. With 22,000 miles plus 2.5 hours of Mid-Ohio track time the front pads seem to be down to about 7/32 (5.5 mm) causing the warning to come on whenever I hit the brakes fairly hard. So I am getting new pads Monday in Columbus and watching the changing process. I think I lost half of my brake life in the two day Mid-Ohio fun so those that don't do any track time should have their brakes last much longer (without the REQUIRED Adrenalin boost that track time brings!).

The rear pads seem to be the same thickness as the fronts. I have not looked at the inside pads but if they are the same then the warning comes on in PLENTY of time which is way good, keeping the rotors quite safe.

Rick

 

I just returned from Midwest Auto Group with the fresh brake pads. Photos are below of the old pads. The bottom of the pad showed about 5 mm of brake pad left (front pads here, looking at the edge of the pad in the second photo). That is what you can see when looking at them through the wheels. The top of the pads though had at best 3 mm of material left (see first photo again looking at the edge, ignore the other pad below it). They wear at an angle, the tops wear more than the bottom which makes sense since the outside edge of the rotor is moving more and faster than the inside edge of the rotor. The rear pads were not worn as much but clearly were close to the sensors. Interesting that modern cars with ABS make the rear brakes work much harder than the old days.

The mechanic unlocks the inside fluid bleeder to a tube and a container as he compresses the pistons to keep dirty piston brake fluid from being forced up into the main reservoir.

The pad kit includes new pins, sensor wire harnesses, and the springy metal device that holds the pins in place. The calipers do not come off of the car. New pads had about 10 mm of material. I think I blew away half of the brake pads during the 2.5 hours of track time at Mid-Ohio last fall so I would guess that if you keep the car away from track time then the pads should last at least 40,000 miles ... WAY more than most California owners will ever drive. And as all are interested in knowing, $3,600 roughly including Ohio tax for new pads front and rear, and my dealer gives a military discount which my 32 years of military service saved me $340, and all WELL WORTH all of the fun I have had with it in the last 18 months!

The bad news will be the rotors ... the future of the rotors that is ... My rotors were perfect. The mechanic mentioned that wear is not the problem, evidently they get lighter (as carbon escapes from the rotor I think) and given enough time and heat cycles they need to be replaced even though they don't look worn. I have no idea when that might happen, the computer in the car keeps track of that but rotors are about $5,000 each ... that makes $20,000 for a set of four. There is a weight marked in grams on each rotor so they can be weighed to see if they need replacement.

When the work was complete (a couple hours) we went out to break in the pads according to Ferrari. Something like 16 stops from 60 to 20 ... then a two minute cool off ... then 16 more from 80 or so to 20 mph, with a cool off, then a few full ABS usage REALLY hard on the brakes, something like that. After the cool off they are back to normal.

There was a 360 setting next to my car ... the front steel rotors on that car are smaller then the rear rotors on the California!
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Rotor cost was parts only but since I was watching the mechanic do all of the brake work it might have cost another hour per wheel or less (my guess) to change the rotors too. The mechanic did not look up the price but he has been right about everything else on the car so I totally trust hiis comments and instructions. I have to chat with them about replacing the stupid USA horns with proper Italian Ferrari air horns and will try to verify the rotor price.