Ceramic vs. Semi-Metallic vs. Organic: How To Choose The Best Brake Pads For Your Car

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Nathan Brown: What's up everybody?   Nathan Brown here with FCP Euro, and today we're  here to talk a little bit about brake pads.   Brake pads are one of the  more mysterious, misunderstood   products that are going to go on your car.  They're also one of the most important.   There's a lot of different options available. So  how do you know which ones are the best to choose?   And it can be a little confusing, so stick with  us today, and we're going to go through all the   different options that are available and how  to choose the right brake pads for you.   Nathan Brown: So before we get into the compounds,   we actually have to talk a little bit about how  brakes work. What they essentially do is convert   kinetic energy, which is the energy stored in  the vehicle going down the road from the weight   of the car, into heat. Nathan Brown:   That's done by the brake caliper, pressing  the brake pad onto the brake rotor.   And the different compounds will all result  in different performance at that point.   Some are going to produce more dust, some are  going to produce less dust. Some are going   to have a better performance when the brake  pad is stone cold versus when it's very hot,   and some of them are going to offer more  or less wear on the rotor itself.   Nathan Brown: So that's one of the important   things to kind of consider. A brake pad is a wear  item, and you're using it up as you're using the   brakes. A harder pad or a more abrasive pad is  going to use up your brake rotor more quickly   and wear that out compared to a softer pad. Nathan Brown:   So brake pads are a lot like tires and that  there's a lot of science and engineering that   goes into them, but also a little bit of magic  that comes together to produce really the best   quality product for you and your car. Nathan Brown:   The most common types of brake pads  are going to be organic, semi-metallic   and ceramic. The first brake pad we're going  to talk about today are going to be organic   compound brake pads. And these are generally going  to be one of the more common ones that you'll find   on a lot of vehicles out there. Nathan Brown:   And these are traditionally made up with, as  you would expect, organic materials like carbon,   Kevlar, glass and rubber, and all bonded  together with a resin agent to produce an   actual brake pad. Believe it or not, asbestos is  one of the more common friction components in an   organic or in older organic brake pads, and it  is still legal to use in very small amounts.   Nathan Brown: So you'll find some organic pads that are   labeled NAO, which stands for non-asbestos organic  as a way to differentiate those that have asbestos   versus those that do not. Just because it doesn't  have that moniker doesn't mean that it has it,   but it is something to pay attention to. Nathan Brown:   Outside of those primary materials, the only  real rule when it comes to organic brake pads   is that they contain less than a 30% metallic  content. An organic brake pad is going to be   inexpensive. It's going to quiet, short stopping  from cold, and it's generally going to be fairly   easy on your brake rotors. Nathan Brown:   Organic brake pads have some advantages,  but they also have some disadvantages.   One of the first and foremost is going to be  that they are quite dusty. If you own a factory   European car, chances are you're familiar with  cleaning that dark sticky dust off of your wheels,   that's primarily made up of the carbon  material that's common in organic pads.   Nathan Brown: Outside of that, they do tend to wear more   quickly than some of the brake pads out there.  And because of the material they're made out of,   they tend to be a little bit more compressible,  which means that the brake pedal is not going   to be as solid as some more performance  oriented pads like metallic or ceramic.   Nathan Brown: Outside of that, organic brake pads tend to have a   fairly narrow temperature window. So once it gets  over that temperature range, it will tend to fade   or lose stopping power very, very quickly.  If you continue to push the brakes on the car   with an organic pad, that material  will eventually fall apart completely.   And so that is something worth noting if you drive  your car aggressively or are planning to ever do   any kind of track days or anything like that. Nathan Brown:   As brake technology and technology  in general continues to advance,   there are some newer compounds that kind of fall  in-between some of these traditional categories   that you think about. These are typically  going to be considered a hybrid organic.   They're generally going to contain less than 30%  metallic content, but they are going to contain   some additional friction modifiers to offer better  performance, less dust, and things like that.   Nathan Brown: The more common brands there   are going to be usually Hawk or Stop Tech. And  both of those brands utilize different materials   to increase the stopping power, offer better brake  performance and less brake dust, but it still   technically is an organic pad. Nathan Brown:   Hawk has their Pharaoh carbon material that  they utilize and Stop Tech uses what's called   a para-aramid material. The para-amid material's  a friction material designed to replace asbestos,   and it offers a much longer wearing, slightly less  compressible brake pad that also offers lower dust   with increased performance. Nathan Brown:   Now, these are generally not going to be like  a racing type brake pad, but they help to blur   the line between an organic and what we would  typically consider our next step, which is a   semi-metallic. Some of the brands you'll find on  the FCP Euro website that offer organic brake pads   include a lot of OE manufacturers. Those are  going to be TRW, Textra, Pagid, and Alte.   Nathan Brown: Semi-metallic is one of the other more   common brake pad compounds that you're going to  come across. And as you would guess from the name,   they generally tend to have a higher metallic  content, something over 30% of the total brake   pad compound. Nathan Brown:   Some of the more common materials that are  included in a semi-metallic pad include iron,   copper steel and graphite. Similar to an organic,  this is all bound together with a high temperature   resin. Now semi-metallic pads offer some  pretty significant performance advantages   over an organic pad. Nathan Brown:   First and foremost, they are a more firm material,  they're less compressible, which means you get   more feedback and feel from the driver's seat,  especially in heavier braking situations.   Additionally, the metallic compounds generally  tend to offer an increase in braking performance   as the temperature goes up, and they have a wider  performance range, which means that they work well   over a wider range of temperature. Nathan Brown:   So a semi-metallic pad can still offer very good  performance from cold, but still offer very good   performance at much higher temperatures. Because  of this, they tend to be one of the more versatile   brake pads that are out there, especially if you  tend to do more aggressive performance driving.   Nathan Brown: Semi-metallics also have some disadvantages.   First and foremost, they tend to be dusty. They're  probably not as dusty as an organic material pad,   but they're certainly going to dust more than  a ceramic. They also tend to be a little bit   harder on brake rotors. Nathan Brown:   So essentially you're going to be going through  brake rotors more quickly. And if you're utilizing   the lifetime replacement guarantee, that may not  be a big deal. But if you're talking about the   ultimate serviceability of the brake components,  it's something that's important to consider,   and something to think about. Nathan Brown:   Another one of the potential  downsides of a semi-metallic brake pad   is that they are more likely to squeal  or produce noise than an organic pad.   Much like the organic brake pads, a lot of OE  and OEM manufacturers produce semi-metallic brake   pads for a variety of cars. Some of the brands  you're likely to see on our website include TRW,   Pagid, Textra, and one of our aftermarket brands,  Ferodo. A lot of the Ferodo brake pads that you'll   see tend to be more of a street track type  brake pad compared to like an OE or a genuine   performance brake pad. Nathan Brown:   And lastly, this takes us to a ceramic compound  brake pad. So ceramic brake pads are probably   going to be one of the newest ones on the  block. They really haven't been around very long   relative to organic and semi-metallic  compounds. And so they're a little bit   more of an unknown for a lot of people. Ceramic  brake pads are generally made up of ceramic   materials, bonding agents and resins to produce  the actual stopping power of the brake pad.   Nathan Brown: Ceramic brake pads are very, very   well known for being extraordinarily low dust. And  the dust that they do produce tends to be very,   very light and easily washed off. So that's one  of the main advantages of a ceramic brake pad   is that it's very, very low dust. Nathan Brown:   Other than the advantage of producing a tiny  amount of dust and very light colored dust,   ceramic brake pads tend to be a much more firm,  not very compressible material. So similar to   a semi metallic, they offer a very firm confident  brake pedal, which is obviously advantageous when   you're talking about coming to a stop. Nathan Brown:   Similarly, they tend to be very, very hard and  long wearing, which means you get a remarkable   amount of life out of a ceramic brake pad,  but conversely, it's also very easy on   brake rotors. So unlike a semi metallic that's  going to chew up the rotors a little bit more,   a ceramic is going to be very rotor friendly,  and you're going to get extraordinarily long life   out of both your rotor and your brake pad. Nathan Brown:   Now with the ceramic compounds, I would say that  quality ultimately is going to matter here more   than a lot of the others. A low quality ceramic  brake pad is going to be probably one of the worst   feeling brake pads you could ever put in to your  car. You may notice a complete lack of stopping   power, especially when the brake pads are cold. Nathan Brown:   So because of that, you always want to make sure  that if you are choosing a ceramic brake pad,   you want to use the best quality and the latest  technology that you can. And that actually leads   me to talk about our new TRW Ultra line  that we just got in here at FCP Euro.   We're really, really excited about this because as  I said, technology and quality is extraordinarily   important in a ceramic brake pad. Nathan Brown:   And with the TRW Ultra, we've been testing these  on our own vehicles here in-house for months   before we introduced them to the website.  And we've been really, really excited   by the amount of performance that we're getting  out of these brake pads for everyday drivers,   while still having the low dust and long  wearing advantages of a traditional ceramic.   Nathan Brown: Lastly, with a ceramic brake pad,   they generally will never make noise. And that's  not to say that they don't vibrate because that's   what actually you're hearing when a brake pad is  squealing. It's vibration noises and resonance   of the brake pad in the braking system. Nathan Brown:   With a ceramic, however, because  the material is so lightweight,   the resonant frequency is well out the range of  human hearing. So the chances of getting a squeak   or a squeal out of a ceramic brake pad are pretty  much nil. One of the things that's important to   keep in mind with ceramic brake is they do  tend to be the most expensive to produce.   Nathan Brown: Ultimately ceramics are the newest   and most technologically advanced brake pads that  are going to be found on a lot of cars today.   And as the technology has increased and as the  performance has increased, they become more of a   viable option for European car owners that really  want to have the quality brake pad with a very low   dust that still offers good stopping power. Nathan Brown:   So hopefully this video has helped to explain  some of the mysteries and some of the differences   between all the different brake pad compounds  that are available. Here at FCP Euro,   we sell quite a few of all of these different  brake pad compounds, whether it's organic,   semi-metallic, or ceramic. Nathan Brown:   And there's not really one particular solution  that's going to be the best one for everybody.   Depending on who you are, how you use  your car and what's important to you,   whether it's low dust or ultimate performance or  things like that, that's going to determine the   best brake pad for you. Nathan Brown:   If you have any questions about any of that, or  if you would like a little advice about the best   brake pad for a certain application, we can try  to point you in the right direction. Definitely   throw those questions or comments in the section  below. And of course, if you did enjoy the video,   please like, and subscribe. And with that, we  will definitely see you on the next one.   Speaker 2: See what happens when you go a little slower?
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Channel: FCP Euro
Views: 183,073
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Keywords: brake pads, ceramic brake pads, organic brake pads, semi metallic brake pads, best brake pads, semi-metallic brake pads, brake pad, semi metallic vs ceramic, organic or semi metallic, semi metallic pads, ceramic or semi metallic brake pads, brake pads explained, semi metallic brake pads dust, organic vs semi metallic brake pads, best semi metallic brake pads, semi metallic vs ceramic vs organic, what are the best brake pads, ceramic or semi metallic brake pads which are better
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Length: 11min 13sec (673 seconds)
Published: Thu Jan 21 2021
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