Poor brake performance from Centric PQ Pro brake pads

[OptiDell]

Hello BITOG,

I installed a set of Centric PQ Pro brake pads from Rockauto about 60k KM (40k miles) ago, and I just want to provide feedback on these pads plus ask for any recommendations for new pads:

Review on PQ Pro brake pds:

These brake pads come with a high-friction red coating which supposedly helps "bed in" the new rotors I also installed at the same time. I did a proper brake bed-in process per the instructions online. The initial few thousand KMs were great, brakes have great stopping power almost feeling like grabby.

However, over the next 5X,000 KM, the braking performance decreased quite a bit. I live in Ontario, Canada, where we get cold winters and salted roads. When the brakes were stone cold (not extreme, just regular -15 degree C weather), they don't really work and require quite a lot of pedal pressure to stop at a stop sign. Luckily i have a few of those and stoplights before i need to get on the highway, but it's just not confidence inspiring. I had to tell the less mechanically-inclined family members to warm the brakes up before you join the highway, certainly don't want to discover the weak brakes when doing an emergency stop from highway speeds.

In summer, the performance didn't really improve. I have had a few instances where it was mid-speed stop and go, and by the time i reach a stop light, i was surprised at the amount of fade the pads already had, and i had to give it quite a bit of pedal pressure again to stop. Around town the brakes are fine, in line with the factory pads i had before these.

TLDR: PQ Pro brake pads did not meet my expectations due to poor cold-bite and below optimal warm-bite.

Now the question of, what's next?

Rockauto has a few choices i an interested in, mainly the following:

Raybestos Element3 Hybrid
Powerstop Z23 Evolution Sport
Akebono Performance (leaning towards this one atm as i have used this on a different car)
Akebono ProACT
Advics (it says OE replacement, i think it's just a model name)


Factory pads are also a viable choice, but i am looking to improve on the factory braking performance or feel a bit for safety purposes. I do understand there is an option to do a big brake upgrade by installing Highlander/Sienna brakes onto the Camry, but it's a bit pricy.....

Curious to know your thoughts, and sorry for the long post!

 

[totegoat]

I've never had to replace a set of pads but if I had to, I'd use factory since they work well for me.

 

[The Critic]

D1293 application? Akebono yellow box (performance) are decent, but very comparable in performance to the real OE Toyota pads (-33471). No advantage IME.

ProACT's would be a downgrade, most likely similar to what you are currently experiencing.

 

[slacktide_bitog]

If it's for your 2014 Camry, get whichever ones ship from the same warehouse as the Advics rotors. The Advics rotors are US-made and the OE supplier.

Another good choice for pads is EBC Ultimax2/Blackstuff, though Rock Auto doesn't sell them.

 

[nascarnation]

I've always had good luck with Akebono. I'm assuming they are still made in Kentucky. Although you have to be careful as a lot of parts get re-sourced to third world locations and not always made to the same quality.

 

[Cujet]

I've been a driving enthusiast forever. I like one type of brake pad. The well made, semi metallic. I despise ceramic pads. AND quite simply, it has become difficult to get good pads lately.

I recently purchased a set of GG rated Wagner Semi Metallic pads for my Jag X-Type. They are fantastic, with good initial bite, and righteous stopping power.

The Wagner ThermoQuiet Semi-Metallic pads with the "Wagner OE25™ zero-copper friction formulation:

 

[OptiDell]

Thank you for all replies above!

For Akebono, the pad listed on Rockauto is the ASP1222A for the Performance line. They are made in the USA per the website.

Great point on semi-metallic. I have no issues with more brake dust if there is better stopping power. For my car (2014 Camry V6, there are two Wagner parts listed: Thermoquiet - "daily driver" (QC1293) and the OEX - "premium" (OEX1293), but both are listed as ceramic pads. Perhaps it's a different formulation from car to car, as in European cars tend to get semi-metallic and Asian cars get ceramic? I dunno.

In fact, the only semi-metallic pad available from a bigger brand would be the Raybestos Element 3. Brief online search seems to yield decent reviews for this pad. I will also reach out to the local Toyota dealer to ask for prices on factory pads.....

 

[walterjay]

I have always used the Wagner pads like Cujet. Absolutely great pads. Look no farther.

 

[UG_Passat]

Even though Centric claims you don't need to heat up the pads to bed them.... Did you heat up the pads to bed them? (the 10-ish 70-5 mpg hard slow downs, then drive until the brakes cool down, and finally go park your car and not use the parking brake)

Once I did that to the Posi-Quiet Ceramics, I was finally happy with the brake pads.

 

[nthach]

IME with Centric, they felt firm and had no issues dry - but get them wet and they were grabby.

I’ll only mess with OE or some aftermarket(Akebono, Bosch,Wagner, Raybestos) these days.

 

[Elroy the Brave]

Hello BITOG,

I installed a set of Centric PQ Pro brake pads from Rockauto about 60k KM (40k miles) ago, and I just want to provide feedback on these pads plus ask for any recommendations for new pads:

Review on PQ Pro brake pds:

These brake pads come with a high-friction red coating which supposedly helps "bed in" the new rotors I also installed at the same time. I did a proper brake bed-in process per the instructions online. The initial few thousand KMs were great, brakes have great stopping power almost feeling like grabby.

However, over the next 5X,000 KM, the braking performance decreased quite a bit. I live in Ontario, Canada, where we get cold winters and salted roads. When the brakes were stone cold (not extreme, just regular -15 degree C weather), they don't really work and require quite a lot of pedal pressure to stop at a stop sign. Luckily i have a few of those and stoplights before i need to get on the highway, but it's just not confidence inspiring. I had to tell the less mechanically-inclined family members to warm the brakes up before you join the highway, certainly don't want to discover the weak brakes when doing an emergency stop from highway speeds.

In summer, the performance didn't really improve. I have had a few instances where it was mid-speed stop and go, and by the time i reach a stop light, i was surprised at the amount of fade the pads already had, and i had to give it quite a bit of pedal pressure again to stop. Around town the brakes are fine, in line with the factory pads i had before these.

TLDR: PQ Pro brake pads did not meet my expectations due to poor cold-bite and below optimal warm-bite.

Now the question of, what's next?

Rockauto has a few choices i an interested in, mainly the following:

Raybestos Element3 Hybrid
Powerstop Z23 Evolution Sport
Akebono Performance (leaning towards this one atm as i have used this on a different car)
Akebono ProACT
Advics (it says OE replacement, i think it's just a model name)


Factory pads are also a viable choice, but i am looking to improve on the factory braking performance or feel a bit for safety purposes. I do understand there is an option to do a big brake upgrade by installing Highlander/Sienna brakes onto the Camry, but it's a bit pricy.....

Curious to know your thoughts, and sorry for the long post!

I have this same pads on my Car, and they've been pretty good so far. They are quiet and have great stopping power.

These were installed to replace some Raybestos Element E3 pads that squeaked like crazy and cracked.

Odd that we've had such different use experiences. Maybe it depends on the car.

 

[OptiDell]

Even though Centric claims you don't need to heat up the pads to bed them.... Did you heat up the pads to bed them? (the 10-ish 70-5 mpg hard slow downs, then drive until the brakes cool down, and finally go park your car and not use the parking brake)

Once I did that to the Posi-Quiet Ceramics, I was finally happy with the brake pads.

I did. 3 gentle brakes from like 30mph to 5, then 5 threshold braking from 60+mph to 5 without engaging ABS, then drive for at least 5 mins without coming to a complete stop. After starting this thread, i did this whole procedure again.

I did feel the brakes got better recently, but this is because the weather has significantly warmed up to around 17 degrees C (63 F).

IME with Centric, they felt firm and had no issues dry - but get them wet and they were grabby.

I’ll only mess with OE or some aftermarket(Akebono, Bosch,Wagner, Raybestos) these days.

I can confirm that these brakes are very grabby when wet, even more grabby when there is surface rust from e.g. rain. Once that layers wears off after a few brake applications, it's back to its "normal".

I have this same pads on my Car, and they've been pretty good so far. They are quiet and have great stopping power.

These were installed to replace some Raybestos Element E3 pads that squeaked like crazy and cracked.

Odd that we've had such different use experiences. Maybe it depends on the car.

Perhaps it's due to temperature? I live in Ontario, Canada where the temperatures can be down to -28 degrees C (-18 F). This is when I made this thread to voice concerns about cold bite. In the summer, temps can range up to 30s C (86 F), and high speed stops can result in brake fade. I know a Camry is not known for best brakes in the biz, but still it was something i had to remind myself and family when driving the car.



I did an experiment one night at around 8 C (46 F), after some driving and brake applications. In a straight line, I pressed on the brake pedal hard and quickly to 1. see if and when the ABS engages, 2. if there was any brake-assist and 3. gauge the pedal feel. I know the ABS did not engage as I could not feel the brake pedal pulsate nor hear the ABS pump do the clickty-clickty sound. However, I did hear a low-ish groaning sound at the heaviest braking zone, which sounded like the brake pads itself are groaning.

In any case, the mechanic said the brake pads were at 40% a few days ago when I brought it in, so i will be looking at the options BITOGers kindly suggested on Rockauto. Pads and rotors have about 60k KM on them at time of writing - driving style varies from grandma to semi-aggressive.

 

[The Critic]

D1293 application? Akebono yellow box (performance) are decent, but very comparable in performance to the real OE Toyota pads (-33471). No advantage IME.

ProACT's would be a downgrade, most likely similar to what you are currently experiencing.

Side note - noticed similar behavior on a few sets of ProACT's that I have installed. Will be dumping them for some DFC 5000's in a few applications.

 

[drtyler]

Side note - noticed similar behavior on a few sets of ProACT's that I have installed. Will be dumping them for some DFC 5000's in a few applications.

Are the DFC 5000 the best of the aftermarket pads?

 

[The Critic]

Are the DFC 5000 the best of the aftermarket pads?

No idea. I tried a few sets a while back, had some noise issues, so I went back to Akebono.

The recent Akebonos have been just as noisy (if not worse), and braking performance is worse.

(Most of the noise issues are from the first stop in the morning when a car gets moved from the driveway.)

 

[AutoMechanic]

My 1st preference is Raybestos Element 3. I’ve had good luck with them. That and Akebono. I personally haven’t used Centric on any of my cars or my customers cars so I’m sorry of your luck with those. On my daily driver I just installed some Motorcraft pads a few weeks ago. Also just purchased new brakes for one of our Camry’s and got the premium line of Napa brakes because they were recommended and Napa has really good parts. I’ve also had good luck with the premium line of all auto parts store pads. I can understand if you only want to consider the ones on your list though. If that’s the case Raybestos or Akebono would be my choices.

 

[OptiDell]

My 1st preference is Raybestos Element 3. I’ve had good luck with them. That and Akebono. I personally haven’t used Centric on any of my cars or my customers cars so I’m sorry of your luck with those. On my daily driver I just installed some Motorcraft pads a few weeks ago. Also just purchased new brakes for one of our Camry’s and got the premium line of Napa brakes because they were recommended and Napa has really good parts. I’ve also had good luck with the premium line of all auto parts store pads. I can understand if you only want to consider the ones on your list though. If that’s the case Raybestos or Akebono would be my choices.

I am open to other choices, but unfortunately I couldn't find a better price when i inquire about pad prices from the local Toyota dealer and Napa Canada store. Both front and rear sets came out to be higher than what I can get from Rockauto shipped to Canada with shipping included. For example, Napa Premium Front brake pad FNP SS8331AX cost $95.19 at the store, while the priciest Akebono Preformance pad ASP1222A costs $68.91 + maybe $10-20 CAD shipping to Canada from USA.

 

[Elroy the Brave]

Supposedly the Bosch brake pads sold on Rockauto are also a decent option.

 

[Greasymechtech]

My vote is for Akeboner ASP and then Raybestons EHT with new or turned rotors.

 

[cos]

I put Centric PQ PRO pads in my 2015 Cadillac SRX, front and rear. I cleaned, lubed and bled everything, as I always do. The initial bite and overall friction were horrible. I did have Centric performance pads (Street/Stop?) in my old Ford Fusion and liked them so I thought I'd give Centric another try. What a waste of money!

I replaced them with Raybestos E3 pads, of course I sanded the rotors (with garnet sandpaper) and they are now my go to pad - good performance, very little dust, excellent fit in the calipers and they do not glaze over like the awful OEM pads did.