Aftermarket brake parts

jim wrote in news:u4qdnZL8vs12nrzWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@bright.net:

That a brake pad lasts longer than OEM does not mean it's better than OEM. Pad life is just one factor in brake performance.

The last set of aftermarket brake pads I personally used were Raybestos "long life". They were so hard they actually blued-up my rotors. This was accompanied by long pedal travel: I had to step harder on the pedal to get them to bite. That was the last straw for me.

I appreciate your point, Teg. Most of us have some preferences that we might not be able to prove are better, but we have learned over time that if we use these certain items we have few or no problems. And I have no problem with that.

I point to the very polarized feelings about motor oil brands and types, and the oil filters for these engines. We use what works for us.

What I think I have learned is that you dont buy some offbrand cheapo part, normally. We are looking for quality at a good price, or at least at a reasonable price.

Most of us dont mind paying for quality, but we hate to pay the high costs and still get junk...

Any such proof would require nothing more than URLs which are of course simply text. Do your own homework

Again, from this and some of your other posts, your experience is clearly and quite obviously limited.

Not at all, for the sake of simplicity I demonstrated the conspicuous ridiculousness of your argument

Does your "experience" cover each and every single year, model and configuration of all Toyotas and Hondas ever produced? I somehow thought not.

Better? Performance? In what respect? Simply more absurdities. Which is the best car, guitar, PC ...? For what intended purpose or application, and what are the criteria?

They were harder and required more force? You're really none too bright, are you? Either that or you desire and expect that your intended audience isn't.

As nearly as I can determine, there ARE standardized tests for brake friction materials, etc, that eliminate the guess work. SAE J1652 is for evaluating friction materials on front disc brakes. SAE J2430 is a test procedure for testing linings on the front and rear brakes together.

And there are others but ALL manufacturers, IIUC, have these tests run on their materials, and it makes it a bit less challenging to pick the right material .

I further understand that there is a lot to be learned from edge codes on the pad material. Not my forte.

Just scanning the literature, it would seem that modern ceramic linings are the better choice in most cases. They take the heat, are durable, are not unusually hard on the rotor disc, and have excellent friction coefficients under most conditions. Metallics, organics, etc generally are less broad in their applicability.

What I have read supports, to me at any rate, that automakers specify, and let any number of manufacturers make these parts. There are high quality American manufacturers of brake parts, but large numbers are also being manufactured in India and China.

Enough of this for now.

"Heron McKeister" wrote in news:xdeUm.2066$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe06.iad:

Automakers attempt to make a brake pad that will work well in all regular-use road-going driving situations. This means adequate friction, adequate smoothness, low noise, resistance to fade, low corrosion, acceptable wear characteristics, etc. This also means a fair amount of compromise, but it also means that the resulting pad will work quite well for the vast bulk of the ordinary driving public.

The automaker has quite a lot more money to spend than the aftermarket in development, since they can amortize the expenditures over a production span that can encompass more than a million vehicle sales plus years of after-sales servicing. Also, the automaker has to contend with new-car warranties that can be three years or more.

The aftermarket operates on a somewhat smaller scale and has a somewhat smaller amount of cash with which to develop its products. Plus they still have to make a margin on what they sell while selling it at a price well below that of OEM.

Obviously, OEM road-going pads won't suffice if you're a racer. Nor will they do if all you care about is longevity and nothing else. In those cases, aftermarket is all you've got.

Guess not.

I have a question for you. Which has more frictional resistance against paper:

1) An eraser, or 2) a coin? Bonus question: Which is the harder of the two?

I desire and expect that my intended audience consists entirely of people just like you. :^)

I beg to differ. The automaker really doesnt enter into this phase. They do NOT make brake parts. Brake part manufacturers cobble up parts for the entire industry.

Automakers SPECIFY, IIUC.

"hls" wrote in news:suKdnaG1grhpxrzWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

And I tend to trust the automaker (in my case Honda and Toyota), to whom I have given tens of thousands of dollars on the trust in the quality of their work.

I think it's reasonable to assume that if I should trust an automaker's quality enough to buy their entire product in the first place, I should generally also trust them enough to follow their path in maintenance and repair of the parts of their product.

Those who buy other automakers' work may not have the same level of trust in their automaker as I do. But even Honda and Toyota have a few serious holes in their quality network, so I guess judiciousness is a universal requirement.

Agreed, absolutely. If I thought I wasn't getting value for my money, I would not make the purchase. And indeed, when faced with that situation, I have not.

Well, maybe not always actually /junk/, but nothing that you wouldn't get for a third the price in the aftermarket.

Honda radiators and windshields are a perfect example. OEM for both are often three times the price of aftermarket, but aftermarket quality is usually at least as good, if not better, than what Honda originally sold.

I currently have a Visteon radiator in my Honda. Visteon was a part of Ford at the time I bought the rad.

"hls" wrote in news:K4WdneiAiJjPDbzWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Well, yeah, but that specification makes /ALL/ the difference in the world.

Auomakers do their own initial development, then they call in the OEM to finalize development of the part. The OEM may suggest changes to improve functionality or reduce cost, but the final call is that of the automaker.

Sometimes the OEM has something already existing that would do just fine with a bit of tweaking to meet the regs. But ultimately, the part MUST meet automaker specs or it's no-go.

Oil filters are a good example. FRAM has been a Honda OEM supplier for oil filters for, I don't know how long, 20 years? But FRAM makes their OEM Honda filters to Honda's very particular and precise specifications. Honda does not just tell FRAM to paint the can blue instead of orange and leave the rest alone.

I used to work extensively with Tier-1 and Tier-2 suppliers. These universally told me that the Japs were far stricter than the domestics in what they would accept. Plus the Japs were much more likely to try and help you, and work with you, to get stuff done properly rather than just scolding you then carrying on as usual, except for cutting 5% off the next invoice. This is part of the reason I prefer the Japs to the domestics.

Whatever works. Word usually gets out about what parts are best. Recently used an aftermarket plenum on a 3800, but went with GM LIM gasket. Big price difference on both, but both were the best part to use in terms of quality. For all I know Dorman supplies GM with plenums. Only GM had the best gasket. What was that deal with Honda brake or PS fluid? That was a weird one. As I recall the Hondaheads would only use the Honda brand, and it might have been required to keep the warranty. Might be wrong, but that's my recollection.

--Vic

This place is like a sandbox filled with kids. Hopefully, there's room for one more. I'm not going to recommend a certain brand. But for everybody that says "The replacement pads/shoes only lasted half as long as the original ones", remember that the replacements have to wear into the irregularities that are in the old drum/rotor. By the time the replacements pads/shoes take the shape of the drum/ rotor, 25% of the friction material is gone. You will probably have the same results if you replaced the originals with OEM. While there are some crappy aftermarket Chinese-quality parts out there, the manufacturers (usually) don't make their own brake assemblies. However, a lot of people will continue to drink the Kool-Aid.

Do you have evidence of this? My informal survey of Internet folklore tells a different tale. According to accounts I have read from the people who are cutting open filters and publishing the results on the internet the Honda/Honeywell filter has the same construction as the equivalent Fram filter. Same cardboard endcaps. Same filter media. Same ADBV. Same everything except the paint on the outside.

But what do those guys know...

How do you know GM had the best gasket? They DIDNT. The aftermarket companies came out with gaskets that worked while GM farted and fumed.

GM outsources those shitty plenums and the gaskets that were originally used to mount them. So, for years, if you had to replace a GM plenum or gasket, you did it with substandard parts.

I did the job ("supervised" my son) on a non-failed '95 Bonneville with the original gaskets. They didn't look good, but they were still holding. Felpro made a "maybe better than original" LIM gasket a couple years after the OEM gaskets started failing. There's still some question about Dexcool eating the original plastic. I don't care about that. The new Felpros were still plastic clad, and still are. In early 2006 GM came out with the aluminum clad gasket. Nobody else has it. Just GM. That's what I used. Every mech who did a lot of these and isn't out of the loop said to use the GM aluminum clad gasket. There's a pretty big base of 3800 owners/mechs/fans on forums, especially the Bonneville forum, which is where I got my info. Go argue with them.

I don't care about your GM problems. I did my manifold work in 2009 on a '95 Bonneville, using 2009 information. And I haven't had the GM problems you've had. Not to say I recommend GM to anybody. But it works for me.

--Vic

jim wrote in news:C7qdnSupnJz8P7zWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@bright.net:

And a "tale" it is.

Visual inspection means zero. They only know what they /see/ when they cut one apart. They have no idea how it FUNCTIONS.

Honda OEM filters use standard FRAM silicone ADBV's (the orange ones). Honda OEM filters use the same FRAM relief valves. Honda OEM filters also use the same "cardboard" (they're not "cardboard") end caps. Honda bills itself as an engine company, and takes engines pretty seriously. And they're OK with what they buy from FRAM.

It's also entirely possible Honda has tighter tolerances than FRAM has for its own products. Same parts, but higher performance standards and a higher reject rate.

Of course, /nobody/ has /any/ idea about the filter media itself beyond what it looks like. The media is the crux of the matter, the heart of the filter. I have personally noted that OEM Honda filters and aftermarket FRAMs behave very differently when observed after removal during an oil change.

You don't say? That sounds like blasphemy.

In a Honda filter the end caps are not cardboard but a quality fiber. In a Fram they are cardboard from an old box that some bum was living in.

me too.

What about the Labs that do tests to evaluate filter efficiency?

behave differently when observed???? Is that like Schrödinger's cat? What behavior did you observe.

-jim

jim wrote in news:MoidnXoFt5MMJbzWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@bright.net:

Are the results of those tests freely available on the Internet, maybe even on the same sites that cut filters open to see what they look like inside?

When removed from the engine and held open-end up, aftermarket filters tend to continue to fill the center pipe from the "dirty" side. With OEM Honda and Toyota filters the center pipe remains dry under the same test (nothing leaks through from the "dirty" side).

There are people who don't have their rotors resurfaced when they replace pads? (unless, of course, visual inspection shows them to be darn near perfect - but even so I'd still probably have them done just for insurance)

Oh, wait, that's (one reason) why I just redid the brakes on my pickemup truck... couldn't stand the warpage

FWIW I've put maybe 30 miles on it since getting it back together - I know, not enough to even break in the pads - and the Raybestos ceramic pads seem to stop well and are dead quiet. WAAAAY too soon to evaluate dusting or wear. Also probably of little help to the OP with his Audi...

nate

I have seen those original gaskets on teardowns too. Echo your observations

Ate a snake for breakfast, huh, Vic?

Yes, there are better parts now, and from GM. When a lot of there failures started occuring, the choice was OEM plenums and gaskets, or a couple of choices of aftermarket fixes. I dont think the DexCool ate the gaskets necessarily. DexCool wasnt much of a product, IMO, but there was considerable evidence that the gaskets themselves (and in some cases the mating surface design) made this a problem. I dont know who makes the newer gaskets for GM....I rather doubt they do it themselves.