97 Plymouth Voyager Front Brakes?

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Mar 19, 2022
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13
Trying to find a good front pad and/or rotor combination for my 97 Voyager.

Story starts, with mechanic noticing that my rotors were pretty glazed and shiny. He told me this was because the ceramic pads were wearing down the rotors. He recommended I change back over to semi-metallics.

Put the new semi metallic pads on, and they stopped great. Better than the Wagner TQ ceramics I had previously. I got Wagner QS semi metallics from a local discount part store. Only gripe, was that they made creaking noises as they grabbed, and dusted ALOT. Stopping performance was great, just noisy and dusty.

Went back to ceramics, wasn't happy with the amount of dust the semi-metallics were producing. I purchased Power Stop Z17 pads. After replacing with these, braking performance, well, sucks. Takes more braking pressure to come to complete stop. I'm not happy with them, and would like to try something else.

My rotors were replaced with the Wagner ceramic pads mentioned earlier. They are ATE slotted rotors, the only slotted I could find it the time. I'm aware that slotted doesn't really do much for me, just thought they looked cool. Rotors likely have somewhere around 10 or 12 thousand miles on them. They have a some wear, sure, but not enough where I'd think they would need to be replaced, no warping at all.

Now, is there a brake pad to to be recommended? I think I want ceramic, just to reduce dust and noise. But if semi-metallic would perform better, that is definitely more important. The Z17's in there now definitely stop, but just feel funny. Just stiffer and don't stop as good as I expect. I think I'll have rotor cut/resurfaced before I replace pads for the third time.

Van has new brake lines and rubber hoses. Master and booster is original, van has 127k. I guess it's possible booster is getting tired, I think that's probably unlikely.

Thanks!
 
Trying to find a good front pad and/or rotor combination for my 97 Voyager.

Story starts, with mechanic noticing that my rotors were pretty glazed and shiny. He told me this was because the ceramic pads were wearing down the rotors. He recommended I change back over to semi-metallics.

Put the new semi metallic pads on, and they stopped great. Better than the Wagner TQ ceramics I had previously. I got Wagner QS semi metallics from a local discount part store. Only gripe, was that they made creaking noises as they grabbed, and dusted ALOT. Stopping performance was great, just noisy and dusty.

Went back to ceramics, wasn't happy with the amount of dust the semi-metallics were producing. I purchased Power Stop Z17 pads. After replacing with these, braking performance, well, sucks. Takes more braking pressure to come to complete stop. I'm not happy with them, and would like to try something else.

My rotors were replaced with the Wagner ceramic pads mentioned earlier. They are ATE slotted rotors, the only slotted I could find it the time. I'm aware that slotted doesn't really do much for me, just thought they looked cool. Rotors likely have somewhere around 10 or 12 thousand miles on them. They have a some wear, sure, but not enough where I'd think they would need to be replaced, no warping at all.

Now, is there a brake pad to to be recommended? I think I want ceramic, just to reduce dust and noise. But if semi-metallic would perform better, that is definitely more important. The Z17's in there now definitely stop, but just feel funny. Just stiffer and don't stop as good as I expect. I think I'll have rotor cut/resurfaced before I replace pads for the third time.

Van has new brake lines and rubber hoses. Master and booster is original, van has 127k. I guess it's possible booster is getting tired, I think that's probably unlikely.

Thanks!

an old beater van from 1997?

Just throw some cheap semi-metallic pads on there
 
It is not an old beater. This van wins awards at shows.

I take extra good care of it, and she is very special to me..
an old beater van from 1997?

Just throw some cheap semi-metallic pads on there

Screenshot_20211222-164824~2.jpg
 
Cool van. You don’t see a lot of them often in good shape. If this is a show winner and you don’t mind investing into it, perhaps a BBK in the front with larger calipers and converting the rear drums to a disc set up or try stainless steel brake lines and see if they firm things up.
 
I'll say this now: stop throwing money at making your 3rd Gen van stop well. That generation had ATROCIOUS brakes as standard, and no amount of fiddling with pad formulations will make it better. Your best bet is to swap for a 4th gen setup, although from my brief research that involves swapping struts, knuckles, lower control arms, outer tie rods, and obviously the calipers/pads/rotors.
 
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