Brakes, straight replacement or upgrade?

[Jcanracer]

55,545 miles. Finally changing my tires and the mechanics are pointing out worn down rear brake pads and slightly off color discs (rear only). Plausible; I saw it with my own eyes. EDIT: I've also read a few threads here that highlight the fact that the rear brakes are prone to premature wear.

Is everyone just going with oem replacement parts or something aftermarket? I had EBC pads on my old car as an upgrade and they were great.

Thoughts?

 

[MikeM.]

I haven't been regularly using my CX-5 brakes hard like I have on most of my other vehicles but, when I do need to haul her down in a hurry from 80 mph, the OEM brakes are just fantastic. And having seen some pretty hard CX-5 driving in videos on the racetrack with no complaints of poor braking or excessive fade, I think your safest bet is to go OEM. The OEM brakes really are superb with excellent feel and progressiveness. I'm not sure why you would need to improve them unless you were going to do some serious track days (and then I would wonder why you wanted to take a CX-5 to the track).

 

[Jcanracer]

Agreed Mike, I guess it was my gut reaction when I saw how much more the rear brakes wore down than the fronts. I'll just do OEM replacement and adjust my thinking for this car.

 

[MikeM.]

The rear pads will wear more quickly than the fronts due to the CX-5's rear bias when braking a normal amount. And changing discs, calipers or pads to aftermarket equipment isn't going to change that. If it did I would be very worried because the rear bias braking (which switches to front bias under hard braking) explains the extreme composure of the chassis while braking and also why this car is so confident in the snow/ice. The rear bias braking helps keeps the car stable before the electronic stability can kick in which makes the car less dependent on the electronic stability system.

I would assume rear bias braking would be standard on most cars by now but I haven't shopped around to see. The type of braking system a car has is not often put front and center in marketing or road tests (beyond measuring braking distance on a perfect road surface). It seems most consumers are more interested in how fast a car can accelerate than how composed it is under braking on tricky surfaces of varying levels of traction while applying steering correction. The CX-5's straight line braking numbers are very good but they would likely be standout numbers if the auto journalists got off their collective butts and designed a braking test that mimicked the challenges of real world emergency braking rather than settling for straight line braking on clean, dry perfect pavement.

 

[Jcanracer]

My previous car didn't even have ABS, much less traction control, it was also maybe 300lbs lighter. So now reading all of this and seeing the faded rear brakes with my own eyes I am beginning to understand more. Thanks.

 

[nXt]

I had to change my rear brakes at 38,000 miles. The fronts were almost new. Now I know why, thanks MikeM for the explanation.

 

[rjdee]

I replaced my rear pads with OEM. The braking performance has been good (no complaints), no dust and cost was reasonable.

 

[cybercruiser]

I replaced my rear pads with OEM. The braking performance has been good (no complaints), no dust and cost was reasonable.

Actual OEM from your Mazda Parts Department, or OEM equal from your local parts store?? (AutoZone, Advanced, NAPA)??

 

[rjdee]

Direct from Dealer. I've been very surprised with the fair pricing from my local dealer on parts. The sales staff gets under my skin though.

 

[GP 2004]

I don't like the dark brake dust from the OEM pads. Makes the wheels look dirty before the rest of the car. On my last car I bought ceramic pads that made a light gray colored dust that wasn't visible on the silver wheels. Performance was as good or better than the OEM pads. I forget the brand, but I got them from Advance Auto. I do remember that they were not Advance house brand.

 

[cybercruiser]

I'll usually try to go one better than OEM, if reasonable.

 

[MikeM.]

I don't like the dark brake dust from the OEM pads. Makes the wheels look dirty before the rest of the car. On my last car I bought ceramic pads that made a light gray colored dust that wasn't visible on the silver wheels. Performance was as good or better than the OEM pads. I forget the brand, but I got them from Advance Auto. I do remember that they were not Advance house brand.

It's preferable to replace all four sets of brake pads at the same time if you are experimenting with different compounds. I don't believe the rear biased braking system of the CX-5 is adaptive in nature (except to the extent that it can detect and compensate for wheel lock-up), it expects all pads to have the same amount of friction.

Brake dust has never bothered me much and I've never had a vehicle with excellent brakes that didn't leave very visible dust. If it bothers you just wax your wheels once a year with a high quality wax and you will be able to spray off any brake dust with a garden hose (and less dust will accumulate to begin with).

 

[MikeM.]

I'll usually try to go one better than OEM, if reasonable.

That's generally hard to do unless your specific application is different than normal.

OEM pads are designed to offer consistent feel hot or cold, wet or dry and have enough power to bring the wheels at least to the point of lock-up on command. And you can't stop faster than that. Pads that are even more fade resistant tend to give up other desirable qualities (like consistent braking hot or cold). Some have almost no friction until they come up to operating temperature which is not a desirable characteristic on a car driven on public roads.

 

[CX-5um]

That's generally hard to do unless your specific application is different than normal.

OEM pads are designed to offer consistent feel hot or cold, wet or dry and have enough power to bring the wheels at least to the point of lock-up on command. And you can't stop faster than that. Pads that are even more fade resistant tend to give up other desirable qualities (like consistent braking hot or cold). Some have almost no friction until they come up to operating temperature which is not a desirable characteristic on a car driven on public roads.

I guess one reason to upgrade from stock performance (for daily driving) is if the OEMS were real crappy. My old 2009 Accord brake pads- now those were crappy. The CX-5's brake pads are good for OEM.

 

[gova]

The rear pads will wear more quickly than the fronts due to the CX-5's rear bias when braking a normal amount. ...

If this is true and deliberate design by Mazda, which looks like it by the tone of Mike's post, why Mazda did not beef up rear brake design?

It is just poor engineering to deliberately allow for pads to wear out at 20-30K as many posters have reported.

 

[MikeM.]

If this is true and deliberate design by Mazda, which looks like it by the tone of Mike's post, why Mazda did not beef up rear brake design?

It is just poor engineering to deliberately allow for pads to wear out at 20-30K as many posters have reported.

Not really, brake pads are a wear item and are not expensive and it only take a few minutes to pop some fresh ones in there.

Every driving style will wear brake pads out at different rates. Drivers who drive consistently aggressively or on a track, would wear out the fronts before the rears. I drive pretty moderately and still have plenty of pad left both front and rear (24,000+ miles). Brakes on my motorcycles are usually gone after 12,000 miles although the front wears out before the rear.

With brakes this good I can handle the need to replace the rear brake
pads in 30-40,000 miles.

 

[tibimakai]

Some, brake for a half a block, before a stop sign, those will wear out very fast.

 

[MikeM.]

Some, brake for a half a block, before a stop sign, those will wear out very fast.

If you see the light turn red far ahead, a light tap on the brakes will signal the auto transmission that you are in a slow down mode and it will downshift a bit sooner than if you just coast without touching the brakes briefly. This will reduce brake wear and, by the time you get to the traffic cued up behind the light, it may have already started moving again meaning you don't have to come to a complete stop.