Semi Metallic Brake Pads

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Bendix is now made by MAT Holdings - who also owns Roulunds Braking. Roulunds makes AutoZone and O'Reilly's house brand pads in China and India, Bendix-branded ones looking the stock imagery of them seem to be made there as well. BPI seems like they are making their pads(Raybestos and Napa, as well as Monroe and Pep Boys) in Mexico or China, seems like they shut down their Canadian plant they got via an bankruptcy acquisition.

Federal-Mogul is still making a majority of Wagner pads in the US and Mexico, the ones I've installed recently were Mexican made. It seems like what FM provides for parts house distributors(Federated SST and Perfect Stop for Auto Value) is rebranded Wagner QuickStop. I've used Perfect Stop before, they seem to work good.


If there's a drastic price difference, it might have to do more with the warranty and maybe hardware("better" shims and caliper clips/compound) - AFAIK, this is the case with AutoZone's Duralast Gold and CMAX series that offer a lifetime warranty.
 
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Originally Posted By: nthach
Bendix is now made by MAT Holdings - who also owns Roulunds Braking. Roulunds makes AutoZone and O'Reilly's house brand pads in China and India, Bendix-branded ones looking the stock imagery of them seem to be made there as well. BPI seems like they are making their pads(Raybestos and Napa, as well as Monroe and Pep Boys) in Mexico or China, seems like they shut down their Canadian plant they got via an bankruptcy acquisition.

Federal-Mogul is still making a majority of Wagner pads in the US and Mexico, the ones I've installed recently were Mexican made. It seems like what FM provides for parts house distributors(Federated SST and Perfect Stop for Auto Value) is rebranded Wagner QuickStop. I've used Perfect Stop before, they seem to work good.


If there's a drastic price difference, it might have to do more with the warranty and maybe hardware("better" shims and caliper clips/compound) - AFAIK, this is the case with AutoZone's Duralast Gold and CMAX series that offer a lifetime warranty.


one thing to add to this: Akebono makes ALL their aftermarket pads in the US
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Originally Posted By: krismoriah72


The Akebono ASP pads are the OE supplier of the Delco pads that my vehicle came with. Kind of pricey but a bit cheaper than OEM Delco parts. Always good reviews of very long life Ceramic.

OEX- not a fan of the style of the pad

Hawk and EBC always good reviews. pricey

For online ordering im leaning towards the Wagner Severe Duty and the Bendix Fleet Metlok for now with Wagner winning due to price and the metlok seem to be a fleet style pad for taxis etc.

The Wagner Severe Duty is the only one that i can get at a Brick and Mortar as far as i can tell.

I want to swing by NAPA and take a look at their $20 vs their $80 pads to see where the $60 difference lies. If they are both rated at FF and countries of origins are similar why would you pay $60 more?

I would also like to swing by Advance afterward and look at the Wagner Severe Duty pads to compare.

I have no problem paying $75 for a set of pads but i am curious if the extra $40 isnt for brand name and marketing.


Autoanything has the EBC Greenstuff 6000 pads for $80 per set, and free shipping. They also carry EBC rotors, which are mostly made in the UK.

The Hawk LTS costs slightly less than EBC

The Akebono ASP will most likely offer better performance and less dust than OE, in addition to costing less like you said. Their basic ProACT line is more like the OE pads.

Napa carries Akebono pads, but at twice the price of online vendors.
 
Ok i got a few things done with my investigation today.

Napa Proformer Semi Metallic $20 Friction FF
Napa Ultra Premium Semi Metallic $72 Friction FE
Napa Fleet $77 Friction FE (this wasnt on my radar but they said they are for severe duty towing and fire/rescue/police)

I then asked to see the most expensive pad they sold
Napa Ultra Premium OE Ceramic $81 Friction EE

Advance-
Wagner Thermoquiet Ceramics $69 Friction GG
Wagner Severe Duty Semi Metallic- None in stock will have to go to another store.


according to the DOT pad codes http://faculty.ccbcmd.edu/~smacadof/DOTPadCodes.htm

"So EE pads have only marginally more torque than no pads at all! Therefore FF pads are usually considered the minimum for a high-performance pad."

I still dont understand fully what the difference in an FE and GG pad is other than looks like GG has very rare brake fade.

Everything i have read says semi metallic is the way to go for towing and extreme duty, yet wagners ceramic has the big GG rating that i have yet to find in brick and mortar stores.

if FE is what 'severe duty' pads are and GG is what quiet low dust ceramics are..which one do i pick for a heavy vehicle that also tows often. also taking into consideration that "Therefore FF pads are usually considered the minimum for a high-performance pad."
 
Originally Posted By: krismoriah72
For online ordering im leaning towards the Wagner Severe Duty and the Bendix Fleet Metlok for now with Wagner winning due to price and the metlok seem to be a fleet style pad for taxis etc.

I put the Metloks on my pick up last summer and I am extremely satisfied with them, especially for the money. They are my first choice for my other vehicles now if I can find them in those applications.
 
I have akebono asp and they like a stop or two in the mornings before full bite comes into play. After they’ve got some heat they bite hard and stop hard and handle lots of hard stops without fade. It’s the only pad I’ve never been able to make “greasy” feeling on bed in.

They don’t need a high speed bed in which is nice, make about 10 30-0 stops and drive normally. GG rated
 
My tundra has weak brakes from the factory and is challenged easily when towing. Best aftermarket pads I have found for it so far have been Hawk LTS. I am an akebono fan, but their pad in this application was inexcusable. The weak oem design plus the weaker pads were dangerous. The Hawks are better, though to be honest they feel about like the toyota branded pads it first had when i bought it.

The strongest shoes I've experienced on the truck are toyota oem, which is what I put in there last year.

This truck has the oem upgrade to 4-pot calipers.

-m
 
I looked at a few more pads

Carquest Frontline (advance auto)- These seem to be the same as the NAPA Fleet, Wagner Severe Duty. The shims look pretty cool some kind of rubber that looks fancy.

SilentStop (Federated)- FF rating, nothing special seem to be made by Wagner.

Except for Wagner I could not buy any brand name pad at any store. Raybestos, Akebono, Powerstop, Hawk.. i guess brake pads are for online ordering only if you want brand name.

I had various answers to who makes what house brand pads..but the best answer was whoever is cheapest in china probably makes these pads.

After having all of those pads in my hands the DOT EE or FE rating which is the worst rating for a brake pad is what are in the box for the police, ambulances and severe duty applications

NAPA had the best range of pads to visually inspect Proformer , Premium , Ultra Premium , Fleet.

All looked nearly identical except for the Ultra Premium. The ultra premium pad surface was very coarse and almost would cut your fingers on touching the other three pads had a nearly identical compound.

I ended up buying the Proformer pads. Visually they look the same as a $50 pad, they have a better DOT rating as well.
My cost was $15 per axle, i figured i would at least test them out for a month or so and if i dont like them I will order my pads online...because as far as house brands I wasnt impressed with the offerings for the prices.

The pads i really wanted to put my hands on were Carquest Blue- the truck forums really rave on them from a few years back.. the nearest carquest is about 50 miles from me and they dont seem to have a working website to look at parts or order. Not even sure if they still make the pads.

As far as i can tell with brake pads and rotors if you want the good names you just have to order them online- otherwise you just have to gamble with house brand pads and rotors and you dont know who got the lowest bid for whats in the box.
 
I agree that the best prices and selection are online. I did get my rear shoes for my Colorado at a local autozone because they were less than $5 (total) than anything decent online and they are lifetime warranty. I think I’ll get 40-50k miles before they need replacing. For brake pads, I get them from summit racing, no problems. Let us know about the Proformers
 
Originally Posted By: krismoriah72
Except for Wagner I could not buy any brand name pad at any store. Raybestos, Akebono, Powerstop, Hawk.. i guess brake pads are for online ordering only if you want brand name.

I had various answers to who makes what house brand pads..but the best answer was whoever is cheapest in china probably makes these pads.

The parts stores years ago, when I was a wee teenager wrenching on the family fleet were proud to sell a name brand of friction, the house brands were the cheap stuff. There was a point in time that Kragen(before the O'Reilly takeover) was proudly carrying Raybestos, the local parts houses carried Bendix or Wagner and the ones that were Beck-Arnley distributors carried Repco/Axxis for imports. Now, there's only a few friction suppliers left and a lot of that production is now in China, India or Thailand.

It seems like MAT Holdings has secured a lot of contract business with the parts chains, they're now making the Bendix brand in China and from what it looks like, it's the same as BrakeBest Select or Duralast Gold. Centric is being pushed by some distributors, their pads are made in Thailand or China.

I think pretty soon, it might not matter on COO but how well a pad holds up. But from my impressions of Chinese-made Bendix CQs back when Honeywell still marketed it and Centric's 105 series pads, I don't have a hot opinion on Chinese friction. But then again, I have Taiwanese-made pads on my cyclocross bike and I trust my life to those.
 
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