If you like long drives while sitting in a giant wide lazy boy chair you will love the flex. If you love having insane cargo room you will love ford flex. If you like Japanese durability and easy of maintenance you will NOT like the flex. For me its worth it.
recommended brake upgrade for 15 Rav 4 XLE ?
- Thread starter apollo18
- Start date
Yes much.
The Rav4 has stock brakes. No upgrade anywhere.
Does not matter if you have UUUUUHP tires still difference in brake distance.
Toyota Supra
Regular Golf
Jeebus that is a whole car length of difference!
For our American friends that is about 4 barrels of oil or 8 assault rifles per bald eagle of freedom squared.
For our American friends that is about 4 barrels of oil or 8 assault rifles per bald eagle of freedom squared.
edyvw
$50 site donor 2025
Toyota in general has crappy brakes.
EBC rotors will work much better (no vibrations after some time). But with EBC you must match pad with rotor.
Premium rotor and Ultimax pads would work great. Sport rotors with Green or Red stuff.
Pagid pads are great too. Pagid is OE on Porsche, so there is that.
I agree that tires make the most difference performance wise. Problem with Toyota is that rotors are low carbon one. If you like to push vehicle, especially if you get good tires that allow higher limits, it is easy to overwhelm rotors.
EBC rotors will work much better (no vibrations after some time). But with EBC you must match pad with rotor.
Premium rotor and Ultimax pads would work great. Sport rotors with Green or Red stuff.
Pagid pads are great too. Pagid is OE on Porsche, so there is that.
I agree that tires make the most difference performance wise. Problem with Toyota is that rotors are low carbon one. If you like to push vehicle, especially if you get good tires that allow higher limits, it is easy to overwhelm rotors.
There is your real upgrade. Change your brake fluid every year since the boiling point lowers a lot after even the smallest amount of moisture absorbed.
The only thing this shows is that on the same tire the Golf outbrakes the Supra.
Edit: one goes to 0 the other to 5. Not sure what is being shown.
That.
I warped a pair of Zimmermann 302mm rotors.
Got fed up with finding "quality" rotors, upgraded to 316mm with larger calipers (cheaper rotors and standard pads).
But I know it wont affect actual emergency brake performance. Despite "summer" TYRES.
Difference in brake performance by TYRE compound. Should not need to be explained.
They are not meant to be compared directly. Just give data point for performance car and regular daily driver vehicle.
It’s not a valid comparison in any way shape or form. Even tire rack has stated the only comparisons to be made have to be done using the same test.
They are not meant to be compared directly. Just give data point for performance car and regular daily driver vehicle.
Another Golf. Happy now? Still not comparable since they are not from the same track and day.
Some more thoughts for reading:
https://www.mercurynews.com/2008/09/26/screech/
https://www.mercurynews.com/2008/09/26/screech/
edyvw
$50 site donor 2025
Brake fluid is definitely big thing, especially here in the mountains. They do affect repeated stops, DRAMATICALLY! I change brake fluid every two years, but BMW gets it 2-3 times a year bcs. track. And not regular DOT4 fluid.
However, brake fluid itself wont improve performance. It will keep brakes performing consistently for longer period if time. That is if rotors and pads can do the same. On RAV4 the whole braking system is weak. It is just enough to make that one decent stop. But brakes are undersized for a reason: 1. Price, 2. Less unsprung weight=better mpg.
Besides going some upgrades like getting brakes from different Toyota models (if possible) best bet are semi-metallic pads and EBC, Hawk rotors.
Theres a lot of options out there - my goto for years has been the simple element3 pads, as they had good brake engagement PLUS good pedal feel. Unfortunately their quality took a nose dive last year and I’ve stopped using them. Akebono ASP (not ACT) matches the element3 as a G-G rated pad, but they always feel a little “wooden” to me at the pedal. But their grip is no lie excellent - may be overkill in a DD, and their quality is known as a better brand. Also basically no dust.
The suggestion above for Pagid is also intriguing.
I tried a couple of hawk variants. I think one can do better. There’s an awful lot of dust of off hawks but the gains weren’t in line. Element3 was a far better pad before they moved production.
I mean heck, you could try the element3 and see if you got a good set. They were hard to beat and were never expensive; it’s just a pain to do it twice.
The suggestion above for Pagid is also intriguing.
I tried a couple of hawk variants. I think one can do better. There’s an awful lot of dust of off hawks but the gains weren’t in line. Element3 was a far better pad before they moved production.
I mean heck, you could try the element3 and see if you got a good set. They were hard to beat and were never expensive; it’s just a pain to do it twice.
Every component contributes to stopping distance, even if the degree is less. I used EBC on lame used tires and noticed the bite and control their Red Stuff brakes could do.
I’ve got red stuff pads and plain rotors in my Altima sr. Nissan uses good rotors and pads (akebono) and the red stuff were an immediate improvement, even with the crappy stock Hankook tires. I replaced the stocks with Bridgestone turanzas shortly after and it got better. I’ve put almost 20k on these pads and rotors and everything is still great. Even Nissans small rear pads are still at bout 75%. The trade off on red stuff is an insane amount of dust for the 1st 5-10k.
Unfortunately for me, Red Stuff only lasted a year for me, so I opted for longevity with Duralast, and Autozone's sweet warranty that includes ordinary wear. Autozone's highest pads are clearly worse than the Red Stuff. Warranty came in handy when a brake hose died and destroyed the pad.
hey all, i looked into pricing and thanks for the input on ebc brakes, i am probably going to do those on my daily driver however for my toyota looking for a upgrade from oem but don't wanan exceed like $250 usd for all 4
the ebc are around $307 for the basic pad and rotor
the ebc are around $307 for the basic pad and rotor
I would not toss away Toyota rotors. My experience was with just the pads on stock worn Toyota Matrix rotors(worn by cheap Centric semi-metallics)
Check close outs on rock auto. I got a decent set of pads and rotors for cheap for my nieces 17 Altima. Nothing I’d use on one of my cars but gets the job done and probably better than what a shop would have used. Advance or auto zone would come in higher than ebc I’d assume.