Rotors And Brake Pad

[TunedRX300]

The test data above from Consumer Reports indicates that the RX stops the same as the LS on a dry road and actually better on a wet road. I consider this safe and sufficient and that is one of the reasons I have an RX. If you dispute the data and do not consider the RX safe and succicient, why in the world would you be driving one.

You can not use two one-run test results from two different setups and claim the comparasion statistically meanfuly. An average of statiscally sufficient number of test runs will tell the TREND better since variables tend to be averaged out.

Your "why in the world would you drive one" makes me remember the same logical fallacy claim of "Love America or leave" by eliminating a third alternative. The short comings of OEM brake design of RX is precisely why some choose aftermarket brake pads, rotors, and brake fluid. We choose not because they are branded "aftermarket", because they have better features and performs better.

I choose Akebono ProAct Cermaic pads because its friction coeficient is more consistant across temperature range over OEM semi-metallic, which gives RX better cold braking performance. I prefer Rotora rotors since slotted rotor cleans the pad surface to reduce glazing, which gives better hot braking performance. Brembo rotor also used better high carbon steel over OEM cast iron to increase its ability to store heat (see picture). Rotora also have heat and rust prevention painting on non-frictional surface, which RX300 OEM rotors don't have.

I don't worry about being rear ended and killed by SUV's simply because they take 5 more feet to stop from 60 mph. I worry about being rear ended and killed by 2 Fast, 2 Furious small cars like these http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y189/mastertech/br.jpg with their aftermarket brakes, suspensiions, intakes and exhausts.

Brake is a safety item, do you tell RX owners not to worry about their air bags not deploying 5% of the time?

Aren't you the one that refuses to disclose whether you are on Toyota's payroll and claiming everything OEM is perfect including the RX AWD tranny?

[mikey00]

Lets see. You said RX brakes were not "safe and sufficient" due to rotor diameter, number of pistons per caliper, pistons not clamping on both sides of rotor. clamping force and so on and you were able to make your RX "safe and sufficient" by just going to aftermarket pads and rotors. You may want to write lexus and tell them. Sounds like an easy fix for a major safety problem with the RX braking system.

Edited January 22, 2006 by mikey00

[monarch]

you were able to make your RX "safe and sufficient" by just going to aftermarket pads and rotors.

He uses ATE Super Blue Racing brake fluid too, in place of the factory original Toyota Brake Fluid http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y189/mastertech/rxbf.jpg

http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...&hl=brake+fluid

because it's "preferred by many BMW performance tuners" and has "high boiling points"

[TunedRX300]

Monarch, High wet boiling point of a brake fluid means it can resist boiling better. This means you will less likely to have compressable air bubbles in your brake system. Do you know what is the wet boiling point of the stock brake fluid and who is Toyota supplier?

You may want to write lexus and tell them. Sounds like an easy fix for a major safety problem with the RX braking system.

Mikey00, I wish this is a realistic approach. It would be a PR disaster for Lexus and it would not make sense financially to redesign and recall all RXs sold, especially most owners are willing to give anything came OEM an automatic "free pass". Personally, it is more cost effective to use aftermarket products that is avaliable to bridge the gap.

Lexus has a strong brand, but that does not mean everything OEM is free of design tradeoff or flaw. I like OEM air filter during summer dusty months and OEM made-in-Japan oil filter. The new GS-FSE wins me over and I plan to buy a GS350 when it comes to the U.S. On the other hands, many aftermarket products have better quality and have better features. For example, Brembo's design and quality is good enought to become the standard OEM equipment for third generation Acura TL w/ 6 speed manual transmission. (Check out www.acura.com). Akebono's ceramic pads have been supplied to Japanese and U.S. automakers since 1985. Direct quote from http://www.babcox.com/editorial/bf/bf30322.htm

"Enter Akebono, an OEM brake supplier to most of the Japanese automakers. Akebono pioneered the development of ceramic-based friction materials back in 1985, and began to market their ceramic linings to a growing list of vehicle manufacturers in Asia and North America. Today, Akebono supplies most of the Japanese transplant manufacturers in the U.S as well as Ford (Taurus up to model year 2002, and the new Ford Explorer), GM trucks and Saturn."

Just my $0.02, afterall, what one put into his car is a personal decision. Hey many decisions are made based on emotions and perception and not reasonings and facts anyway. Have a good weekend.

[mikey00]

Monarch, High wet boiling point of a brake fluid means it can resist boiling better. This means you will less likely to have compressable air bubbles in your brake system. Do you know what is the wet boiling point of the stock brake fluid and who is Toyota supplier?

You may want to write lexus and tell them. Sounds like an easy fix for a major safety problem with the RX braking system.

Mikey00, I wish this is a realistic approach. It would be a PR disaster for Lexus and it would not make sense financially to redesign and recall all RXs sold, especially most owners are willing to give anything came OEM an automatic "free pass". Personally, it is more cost effective to use aftermarket products that is avaliable to bridge the gap.

Lexus has a strong brand, but that does not mean everything OEM is free of design tradeoff or flaw. I like OEM air filter during summer dusty months and OEM made-in-Japan oil filter. The new GS-FSE wins me over and I plan to buy a GS350 when it comes to the U.S. On the other hands, many aftermarket products have better quality and have better features. For example, Brembo's design and quality is good enought to become the standard OEM equipment for third generation Acura TL w/ 6 speed manual transmission. (Check out www.acura.com). Akebono's ceramic pads have been supplied to Japanese and U.S. automakers since 1985. Direct quote from http://www.babcox.com/editorial/bf/bf30322.htm

"Enter Akebono, an OEM brake supplier to most of the Japanese automakers. Akebono pioneered the development of ceramic-based friction materials back in 1985, and began to market their ceramic linings to a growing list of vehicle manufacturers in Asia and North America. Today, Akebono supplies most of the Japanese transplant manufacturers in the U.S as well as Ford (Taurus up to model year 2002, and the new Ford Explorer), GM trucks and Saturn."

Just my $0.02, afterall, what one put into his car is a personal decision. Hey many decisions are made based on emotions and perception and not reasonings and facts anyway. Have a good weekend.

All this is really nice, and I do agree aftermarket parts do in many cases make sense. However, you were refering to the RX braking system as not being "safe and sufficient" and being "severly undersized". The RX was lacking in clamping power, number of pistons per caliper, not clamping on both sides of the rotor, rotor diameter and so on. Using aftermarket pads, rotors and brake fluid does not address any of these issues. If you truely feel that way about the RX braking system why in the world would you put yourself and your family in such a car. After driving 2 RXs for a number of years now and reviewing the data available on braking performance of the RX, I have no problem putting my family in mine.

I know you said the "TREND" is that the Lexus sedan brakes better than the RX and discounted the Consumer Reports data, but after checking the stopping distance data available at the various sites I could find no evidence of this "TREND". The organizations I used that do 60-0 or 70-0 braking tests are Car & Driver, Motor Trend, Consumer Reports and Edmunds.

Edited January 23, 2006 by mikey00

[TunedRX300]

Monarch, High wet boiling point of a brake fluid means it can resist boiling better. This means you will less likely to have compressable air bubbles in your brake system. Do you know what is the wet boiling point of the stock brake fluid and who is Toyota supplier?

You may want to write lexus and tell them. Sounds like an easy fix for a major safety problem with the RX braking system.

Mikey00, I wish this is a realistic approach. It would be a PR disaster for Lexus and it would not make sense financially to redesign and recall all RXs sold, especially most owners are willing to give anything came OEM an automatic "free pass". Personally, it is more cost effective to use aftermarket products that is avaliable to bridge the gap.

Lexus has a strong brand, but that does not mean everything OEM is free of design tradeoff or flaw. I like OEM air filter during summer dusty months and OEM made-in-Japan oil filter. The new GS-FSE wins me over and I plan to buy a GS350 when it comes to the U.S. On the other hands, many aftermarket products have better quality and have better features. For example, Brembo's design and quality is good enought to become the standard OEM equipment for third generation Acura TL w/ 6 speed manual transmission. (Check out www.acura.com). Akebono's ceramic pads have been supplied to Japanese and U.S. automakers since 1985. Direct quote from http://www.babcox.com/editorial/bf/bf30322.htm

"Enter Akebono, an OEM brake supplier to most of the Japanese automakers. Akebono pioneered the development of ceramic-based friction materials back in 1985, and began to market their ceramic linings to a growing list of vehicle manufacturers in Asia and North America. Today, Akebono supplies most of the Japanese transplant manufacturers in the U.S as well as Ford (Taurus up to model year 2002, and the new Ford Explorer), GM trucks and Saturn."

Just my $0.02, afterall, what one put into his car is a personal decision. Hey many decisions are made based on emotions and perception and not reasonings and facts anyway. Have a good weekend.

All this is really nice, and I do agree aftermarket parts do in many cases make sense. However, you were refering to the RX braking system as not being "safe and sufficient" and being "severly undersized". The RX was lacking in clamping power, number of pistons per caliper, not clamping on both sides of the rotor, rotor diameter and so on. Using aftermarket pads, rotors and brake fluid does not address any of these issues. If you truely feel that way about the RX braking system why in the world would you put yourself and your family in such a car. After driving 2 RXs for a number of years now and reviewing the data available on braking performance of the RX, I have no problem putting my family in mine.

I know you said the "TREND" is that the Lexus sedan brakes better than the RX and discounted the Consumer Reports data, but after checking the stopping distance data available at the various sites I could find no evidence of this "TREND". The organizations I used that do 60-0 or 70-0 braking tests are Car & Driver, Motor Trend, Consumer Reports and Edmunds.

Having better pad with consistent coefficient coefficient means higher friction force can be supplied to the rotor assembly across all temperature range. Ffriction=Coefficient * Clamping Force.

Rotora offers a 4 piston 12.5 inch front brake set and a 6 piston 13 inch front brake set. In addition of having larger diameter and more mass, it has directional vented vanes for better heat dissappation. Last, stainless steel brake lines with clear plastic tube shrink wrapped will reduce brake line swollen so the pressure from the master cynlinder won't have as much pressure loss across rubber brake lines as it is the case for OEM. There are so many aftermarket products that I can only list a few examples.

Last I find aftermarket parts save time for DIYers. ATE Superblue brake fluid offers two colors, blue and gold, so one can tell when to stop bleeding old brake fluid by color change. Akebono has integrated front pad indicator and a noise - no need to remove OEM clip-on indicators from old pad to new. Having cheaper than OEM price is just icing on the cake.

Again this is not a holy war and I do not benefit financially one way or another. I could care less about branding, but more about features and value.

[Grumpa72]

He uses ATE Super Blue Racing brake fluid too, in place of the factory original Toyota Brake Fluid http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y189/mastertech/rxbf.jpg

http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...&hl=brake+fluid

because it's "preferred by many BMW performance tuners" and has "high boiling points"

Your sarcasm aside, this is a high quality brake fluid. One of the "killers" of good brakes is moisture for two reasons. One, moisture in your fluid causes the caliper bores to rust. ALL calipers seep microscopic amounts of water. That is why your brake fluid turns from a very light honey color to dark brown and why it should be replaced every two years. The second reason that moisture is bad for brake fluid is that it lowers the boiling point of the fluid. When brakes get real hot and the fluid starts to boil, your brakes get spongy and eventually you will lose them until they cool down. I have no issues with changing out to either the ATE Super Blue or even the Ford brake fluid. Both are high quality products used by lots of folks that I communicate with on other boards.

Gary

[monarch]

Your sarcasm aside, this is a high quality brake fluid. One of the "killers" of good brakes is moisture for two reasons. One, moisture in your fluid causes the caliper bores to rust. ALL calipers seep microscopic amounts of water. That is why your brake fluid turns from a very light honey color to dark brown and why it should be replaced every two years. The second reason that moisture is bad for brake fluid is that it lowers the boiling point of the fluid. When brakes get real hot and the fluid starts to boil, your brakes get spongy and eventually you will lose them until they cool down. I have no issues with changing out to either the ATE Super Blue or even the Ford brake fluid. Both are high quality products used by lots of folks that I communicate with on other boards.

Gary

Grumpa72, ATE Super Blue Racing is a DOT 4 brake fluid. The fluid reservoir of your Lexus brake master cylinder reservoir says in big Capitol letters "USE ONLY DOT 3 BRAKE FLUID." as does the Toyota service technician Brake Systems training manual. Therefore Toyota / Lexus owners who use ATE Super Blue Racing Brake Fluid are knowingly using an unapproved brake fluid.

[Grumpa72]

Grumpa72, ATE Super Blue Racing is a DOT 4 brake fluid. The fluid reservoir of your Lexus brake master cylinder reservoir says in big Capitol letters "USE ONLY DOT 3 BRAKE FLUID." as does the Toyota service technician Brake Systems training manual. Therefore Toyota / Lexus owners who use ATE Super Blue Racing Brake Fluid are knowingly using an unapproved brake fluid.

I will say that, since my car is too new to need a brake fluid change, I have not read the reservoir, only looked at the level. I am usually a proponent of buying OEM quality products and sticking with recommended products but let me venture in the dark murky waters of "guessing" what that "Use Only DOT..." comment means. In my limited knowledge of brake fluids, your current choices are DOT 3, 4, and 5. DOT 3 is what we are all used to and, again, in my little world, DOT 4 is not anything more than a reformulation of 3. DOT 4s biggest benefit, and difference, is its higher boiling point over DOT 3. DOT 5 on the other hand is silicone based brake fluid and is not compatible with many car systems. Nor is it compatible with DOT 3/4, requiring a complete flush of the system if you switch types. In fact, in the classic car world, where old cars are stored for long periods of time, a fair number of owners have switched to DOT 5 because of various characteristics.

So, what am i saying? I think (this is my qualifier) that this warning of using 3 only refers to not putting 5 in your car. I personally use Valvoline SynPower, which is listed as a DOT 3/4 brake fluid.

Gary