Bloody brake dust!!

T

TRDMS3

Member
Ok a week old and the front rims are literally gone gun metal!!! WTF!
Anything available out there that will make it not stick onto the wheels so quickly I am already downshifting and tryin to avoid braking etc oh and my friend's X5 front wheels are even worse they collect even more in only a few days and after washing them over again they gone somewhat yellow lol
Cheers :o(burn)
 
FWIW, I was told by a mechanic once that you shouldn't downshift to slow the car down. He was a clutch mechanic. Now, I always do this on my bike and after 21k, no issue yet but the car clutch/tranny is probably a more hefty rub.

My wheels do the same thing. I think you just have to change out the pads to something else. At least they stop well! :)
 
Drive a BMW. You'll appreciate the brake dust the MS3 puts out.


Wax your wheels with a good automotive wax. Seriously. It helps.
 
You either misunderstood what your clutch mechanic was saying, or he's stupid. No offense.

Downshifting improperly will damage components. Rev-match properly and there is little or no additional wear to clutch components.
 
I am sure he didn't mean rev matching.

He was talking about just shifting into a lower gear and releasing the clutch to slow down the car.
 
The thread op didn't say anything about riding the clutch into the next gear. He just said down shifting to slow down. Slowing down via a down shift does not require you to slip the clutch into the lower gear.
 
Wow. You have been much more Angry than Happy lately. Sorry if my general advice and information sharing has caused you to feel the need to jump on me about my post.

I think if the OP had been trying to clarify what he meant by:

"I am already downshifting and tryin to avoid braking etc"

then I would think your aggressive posts could be helpful by supporting the point. In this case, it's not. It would be quite difficult to slow down and not use the brake while properly matching revs.

I would think that if the OP had any issues with what I said, then they would let me know.
 
Your general advice doesn't seem to address his problem at all. It's a discussion about brakes, and you're telling him that a mechanic told you down shifting is bad. How is that relevant? You're also saying "car clutch/tranny is probably a more hefty rub." when in fact a proper downshift should have little or no rubbing. How is that relevant?

serialtoon: downshifting is bad if you do it wrong. It's not really about the synchros, either. If you don't downshift properly you accelerate clutch wear. You know how you clutch out slowly in first gear to get rolling? That wears on the clutch plate, and is the primary source of wear on a clutch. Most other shifts don't have that same sort of prolonged wear. Some people (who don't know what they are doing) do the same to downshift, slowly feeding out the clutch to bring engine speed up to match vehicle speed instead of spiking the throttle to match revs. It's bad.
 
When I had my 05 GTO, it had said "don't rely only on your brakes to slow you down" saying it would overheat and possibly warp the rotors. I downshift and let the clutch out to slow down from time to time, but only when I know i'm going to need a lower gear. Haven't learned how to heel+toe. I know how to rev-match but it's kinda hard when you're pressing the brake to slow down, let go to rev-match then brake again. By then you're pressin hard.

I can't imagine how it'd be bad?
 
You're slipping the clutch into gear, just like you do in first. It's unnecessary wear on the clutch plate.

If you plan ahead a bit more on the road you'll always have time to downshift to 3rd or 2nd and then brake. Offramps are usually long enough you don't need brakes to do most of your slowing down, you just rev match to down shift and let it coast in gear until it's time to downshift again. You don't even need to heel-toe, you just need to give yourself more time and space to stop.

Likewise turning a corner. You know you have to slow down far in advance, so plan ahead. I do most of my driving in the city in 3rd or 4th, and when I am approaching a corner I coast to slow down a bit, downshift to third, brake to get myself to cornering speed, downshift into second, take the corner, pull away. I always have lots of time to do this and only rarely have a problem with co-ordinating my downshifts with my braking.
 
It just seems like every time I've done that, I have other variables I can't control - traffic, people crossing the street, emergency braking.

If I were to downshift properly, then i'll be skipping gears. Like going from 6th to 4th or 3rd, slow down to gentle cornering speed and be just barely above 1k rpms, which gives me no power out of the turn.

Forgive my ignorance, but i'm just trying to make sense of it. My dad's been driving stick for a long time and he just basically said I was downshifting and rev-matching way too much. He advised I should just use the brake to slow down, when the revs are really low, slip the clutch into 3rd or whatever gear necessary and brake at the same time.

I don't get how i'll watch certain race videos where they're approaching a curve in 3rd, and somehow while they're braking and entering the corner I'll hear the revs change tones so subtly, and all of a sudden they had downshifted to 2nd without my even realizing while watching it. Seems that'd be the best way to do it if you could, on a daily basis.
 
I usually shift every gear, up and down, because it's fun. I might skip gears if I'm stomping on it down an on ramp in 3rd, go right to 6th. You could probably go from braking in 4th down to 1k RPM and shift to 2nd for a corner, but going from 6th down to 3rd seems a bit much. What are you doing approaching a 2nd gear speed corner in 6th gear?

Driving is always about the variables you can't control, but you can always control your own driving. You just need to give yourself more space, or create space for yourself to do these sorts of things. It can be hard to do in bumper to bumper traffic, but you're usually going so slow it's not an issue.

The stuff you're seeing in the racing vids is heel-toe. It can be hard to do, and it's how I drive in a car when I fit in it well enough to do it, but this isn't one of those vehicles. Generally I just give myself enough time to do everything I need to, and if a situation comes up where I don't have enough time, I engine brake as much as I can and just use the brakes. It's rare for that to happen, though.
 
Happy and Lame:

These were statements from my original post:
"FWIW, I was told by a mechanic once that you shouldn't downshift to slow the car down."

"I think you just have to change out the pads to something else."

Then you decided that you needed to set me straight because?

You posted:

"Your general advice doesn't seem to address his problem at all. [WRONG] It's a discussion about brakes, and you're telling him that a mechanic told you down shifting is bad. How is that relevant? You're also saying "car clutch/tranny is probably a more hefty rub." when in fact a proper downshift should have little or no rubbing. How is that relevant?"

You obviously felt the need to set me straight and not really pay attention to the fact that I wrote "FWIW". Not only that, you then decided to keep on posting and tell me that I am posting irrelevant information when YOU...YOU never stated anything regarding what the OP was asking about. You know, as you stated, brake dust.

If you feel the need to get on the forums and try to bully people so you can feel better about yourself, please don't.
 
I don't really want to get into this with you because, despite what you might think, I'm not giving you a hard time or yelling at you. However:

You posted some general info that was factually incorrect or misleading to address something the OP is doing to minimize brake wear. I corrected you because misinformation is bad. You then defended your position that the OP was talking about slipping the clutch into the next gear. I pointed out his post said nothing about how he downshifts and only that he does. You got defensive.

Sorry if my general advice and information sharing has caused you to feel the need to jump on me about my post.
Click to expand...
To which I replied:
Your general advice doesn't seem to address his problem at all.
Click to expand...
It doesn't. Your specific advice about changing pads is helpful, but a tangent about down shifting to slow down being bad is misleading at best.

I've not addressed the OPs problem because other than new pads and keeping his wheels washed and waxed, there isn't much he can do.

I felt the need to set you straight because telling people they should down shift because it's damaging to their car, your mechanic told you so, is misleading and bordering on wrong. Downshifting is an important aspect of driving stick, not only for proper operation but for safety reasons as well, and I don't really want misinformation discouraging people from doing it. I'd rather they understand how to do it right and why doing it wrong can be damaging to a vehicle.

Relax. I'm not attacking you.
 
back on topic

the only real way to prevent brake dust is to change pads

however, to make brake dust come off easier, a proper wheel wax will prevent the brake dust adhere to the wheel, and cleaning will become much easier.
 
yeah polishing the wheel does help keep dust off. So will changing pads. I went with hawk, and the rears dont have as much dust collection as they did with stock
 
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