Great Job, GM!

[Shannow]

Dunno about the G*, but have heard very few Commondore SS owners with issues. That being said, there's and SV-6 at work that has scared the carp out of it's driver a few times with rear end "crashing" noises. Drove two identical Ford XR-6s and found one with majorly nasty drivetrain snatch, and the other a delight. Stick on wheel weights on calipers is lame.

 

[PT1]

Holy Squeaky brakes Fritz....what do we do now??? Aw just slap some sticky weights on and ship that thing to another sucker.. Just tell em it's "high Performance" But Fritz...what happens when the weights come off? "Just tell them they all do that" Make sure you use the weights that will hang on for 36,001 miles...

 

[Gary Allan]

Once you put the design into the pipeline ..it's hard to alter it. Too many parts already made/ordered from suppliers ...etc..etc. All the byproducts of being too big and having to keep the trains on time to pay the bills. I really have to blame the engineers here. They never had to "advance" to this level of incompetency. There were decades of proven designs that never had this issue that they could have used if they hadn't attempted to be German engineers in an American market. You don't need to complicate things here to that degree. It just doesn't pay. How many of you REALLY care if you have .003oz less of unsprung weight (or whatever the goal was with this design)?

 

[IndyIan]

I kind of agree with Gary, why bother to push the limits on caliper weight on the regular Camaro? While reducing unsprung weight has many advantages I doubt they put wheels on that could be called light weight either. They should've cast one weight with a GM logo or SS and stuck it on the outward side of the caliper. Atleast then the average joe would think that it looks "cool". Or put fins on it and said it helps cool the brakes... I guess if I bought a Camaro and didn't like the look of the weights I'd take them off and see how bad the noise is... It might not bother me at all. Ian

 

[Mr Nice]

That photos reminds me of the Velcro used in some GM cars to lessen the squeaks from the dash board. If GM doesn't was to engineer something correctly, they have no business building a half*** car.

 

[brianl703]

 Originally Posted By: LT4 Vette

That photos reminds me of the Velcro used in some GM cars to lessen the squeaks from the dash board.

I've seen that stuff in other cars, too. It's not Velcro, either, although superficially it may appear to be.

 

[Pablo]

Volvo did the Velcro thing, too.

 

[bdcardinal]

there was a TSB on early S60R's and V70R's to put an updated bracket on the front brakes to stop squealing. on my personal car i don't care about brake noise. i would rather have a shorter stopping distance then quiet pads.

 

[Shannow]

 Originally Posted By: Gary Allan

I really have to blame the engineers here. They never had to "advance" to this level of incompetency. There were decades of proven designs that never had this issue that they could have used if they hadn't attempted to be German engineers in an American market. You don't need to complicate things here to that degree. It just doesn't pay.

When the original Mitsubishi Magna was developed for the Oz market, Mitsubishi put out a tender for a four wheel disk braking system. The guys who won the order initially put in 3 levels of disk brakes, and a non compliant (to the specification), but effective "economy" disk drum set-up at a cheaper price. Beancounters came back to them with "like your price, we'll pay that for a 4 wheel disk set-up - make it happen". So the car ended up with the marketting advantage of four wheel disks, but with worse braking performance than the offered disk/drum.

 

[dishdude]

 Originally Posted By: bdcardinal

on my personal car i don't care about brake noise. i would rather have a shorter stopping distance then quiet pads.

I agree with you on this one, but a lot of people equate brake noise to a problem.

 

[mstrjon32]

 Originally Posted By: chet2

if you guys dont like the new camaro give it to my faT A--

+1. There's nothing even worth discussing here. The Prius used to have sticky little pads (does it still?) stuck to the underside of the center console to keep it from rattling. Of course, I don't see any ridiculous threads on that. GM is building one of the slickest new cars you can buy, and they fixed a problem (likely noise due to a resonating caliper), and they still take heat for it. In the next generation they will probably update the calipers and the weights won't be necessary. If this is the biggest problem you all can find with the car, I'd say they've done a [censored] fine job. And if you still don't like it, drive your Yaris.

 

[brianl703]

 Originally Posted By: mstrjon32

And if you still don't like it, drive your Yaris.

There's a Yaris videogame on Xbox live. It's about as exciting as the car is.

 

[cousincletus]

From my experience, GM uses a pad that's too hard and not rotor friendly. The easiest solution is to use different pads that will probably wear faster but make less noise and will be more rotor friendly. But then you'll hear the import loving whiners snivel about how much longer their Toyota brakes last. Can't win.

 

[oldmaninsc]

 Originally Posted By: mstrjon32

 Originally Posted By: chet2

if you guys dont like the new camaro give it to my faT A--

+1. There's nothing even worth discussing here. The Prius used to have sticky little pads (does it still?) stuck to the underside of the center console to keep it from rattling. Of course, I don't see any ridiculous threads on that. GM is building one of the slickest new cars you can buy, and they fixed a problem (likely noise due to a resonating caliper), and they still take heat for it. In the next generation they will probably update the calipers and the weights won't be necessary. If this is the biggest problem you all can find with the car, I'd say they've done a [censored] fine job. And if you still don't like it, drive your Yaris.

I don't know - if I spent my hard earned money on a new vehicle, I would like to think that everything is designed properly and works properly. Not Mickey Moused. Something else to think of - if they took this "shortcut" on the brakes, what else did they take a "shortcut" on or Mickey Mouse? Personally I could care less what my rotors look like, but there are a lot of people that do! Not to mention I'd say there is a world of difference between putting some "sticky little pads" on a center console than there is putting some weights on the brake caliper! As least on the Prius they were trying to fix the rattle. I haven't had much luck getting GM to fix any of the rattles on my SUV.

 

[cousincletus]

I thought it (weights) was such a minor concern with a simple solution that it wasn't even worth mentioning. Replace the pads with softer ones with shims on the back, then knock off the weights for a cleaner appearance. Your brakes will not last as long, but no squeal or excessive rotor wear. Pretty much no one that uses the car for everyday use is going to push the limits of the brakes anyway, so the softer pads should hold up well.

 

[PT1]

 Originally Posted By: bdcardinal

on my personal car i don't care about brake noise. i would rather have a shorter stopping distance then quiet pads.

On a new vehicle I expect: 1. good performance 2. quiet performance 3. long life pads anything else is just garbage as this technology is decades old.

 

[mstrjon32]

 Originally Posted By: PT1

 Originally Posted By: bdcardinal

on my personal car i don't care about brake noise. i would rather have a shorter stopping distance then quiet pads.

On a new vehicle I expect: 1. good performance 2. quiet performance 3. long life pads anything else is just garbage as this technology is decades old.

Let me know how that works out for you, because you can't have everything, I don't care how much money you spend. It's always a trade off between stopping performance and pad life. Most street cars offer a pretty good compromise.

 

[cousincletus]

I wonder if the 6 cyl. Camaro has the weights?

 

[mpvue]

this really bothers me (well, not too much, I'm not going to buy one!) but they've HAD enough time to get this sorted out! come on, they did photo ops w/ Dale Jr showing all the suspension designs, the cars been in the mags/forums for a few yrs now, and they can't figure out how to fix brake noise? I don't know why GM has to go and try to redesign the wheel (pun intended). other mfgrs source a brake from a well known vendor (brembos are on everything), there, DONE. proven product, no issues. or why didn't they use the fancy-schmancy calipers from the corvette? I'm just spittin out ideas here, I don't know all the issues involving parts sourcing, but this is unacceptable.

 

[mstrjon32]

 Originally Posted By: mpvue

other mfgrs source a brake from a well known vendor (brembos are on everything), there, DONE.

Uh, wrong. IIRC, the Camaro SS (or is it the RS package?) has Brembos. Engineering a car or anything else for that matter involves a lot more than taking parts off a shelf and bolting them together. This raises a good question: are these weights on the base brakes or the upgraded ones? Or both?