Cars Accessories

Brake Pads?

Posted by xdarkcloudhowlx

I am replacing the brake pads on my Toyota Corolla and I need to know which ones are the best and will last the longest. There are: carbon metalic brake pads, duralast gold, valucraft, or morse ceramic. Any help I would appreciate it. Thanks.
Thanks for the answers! To the first answer what is rotors?...

You will get some varied opinions on this. The basic options in brake pad materials are organic (non-metallic), semi-metallic, and ceramic. I recently had brakes replaced, and I went with the ceramic. However I drive a big van that went through a set of pads in 40K miles. If you go ceramic (which is a harder material) you'll probably also want to consider ceramic rotors because the pad will wear the rotors harder. Ceramic pads don't dust up as like semi-metallic pads. Although both work fine, one advantage of semi-metallic pads is slightly better performance (i.e. stopping power).

If you're keeping the vehicle for a while and pad life is a concern, strongly consider the ceramic. I don't know the age of the Corolla, but if you're not sure how long you're keeping it, you may want to consider cheaper options including regular organic pads - especially if you're not replacing the rotors ($) at this time. Bottom line - any name-brand pad is probably going to serve you pretty well. A Corolla doesn't require tons of stopping power, and most pads with your vehicle are going to get you 50K miles (and probably more) depending on your driving conditions. I had a Plymouth colt that got 80K miles on the OEM (basic) pads.

Rotors are the metallic discs that "rotate" with the wheel. The pads come into contact with them when you hit the brakes. "Turning" the rotors (if they're not too bad) is a way of re-using the rotors by machining/grinding away the rust, pits, and warping so they rotate evenly and contact the new pads evenly. Good luck!