holy moly!!! new brake pads and full geometry results !!

[g.lewarne]

today the nice postman delivered my new brake pads....after always having standard road pads (ebc cheap rubbish) i decided to splash out a little and buy some good stuff.

I didnt have a massive budget so got the best I could afford and ended up with

FRONT - Mintex M1144
REAR - Black Diamond Predator

total cost - £138

bearing in mind i have the smaller rev1 brakes, the difference is unbelieveable! within just 3 miles of town driving they were already better than what was on there before, and after a bit of use on the dual carriage way i nearly put my face through the windscreen!

am so happy with my brakes now, all I have to do is re-do the winding on the rear calipers as my handbrake has too much travel now, but for the moment is well chuffed

a totally worthwhile upgrade, and im using std plain discs

next stop - full geometry at 3pm

[4ndee]

Hmmm were from. I like mintex pads

[JohnnyC]

Mintex 1144 are superb

[g.lewarne]

got the front mintex pads from my local factors, special order - ended up the same price as camskill

got the rear black diamond pads from larkspeed

went out for a blast tonight, they are effing superb and i dont think the fronts are fully bedded in yet either - got them really hot on a few 60-10 slowdowns, drove around for a bit to cool them and after that working brilliant.

For anyone interested, i have ditched all the anti squal shims and it seems to have firmed up the pedal a little, and the brakes are still silent. In fact, i now get a reassuring "whir" from the front when i brake hard

Also, noticed that all the new pads have more pad material (ie . thickness) than any standard road bads I have bought, including mintex redbox

[g.lewarne]

Here are the results of my full Geometry alignment from this afternoon as well

I dont have the "before" printout, but this is how it ended up. The front right castor could not be adjusted any more, and was literally right on the threshold filcking between red and green, the alignment guy said dont worry about it, the tolerances are rather large and he doubted it would make any significant difference.

SInce its been done it now drives straight, I have a perfectly straight steering wheel (for the first time!!!!) and it feels so planted - even my wheel wobble at *cough* 65+ has gone

The lesson I learnt today is that tyre fitting places have tracking equipment that is massively out of calibration - just two weeks ago I had a four wheel tracking done at a popular place in plymouth, and they left me with rear wheels that were both pointing in the same direction - one toe in and one toe out, giving my car a thrust angle of 9 degrees! no wonder i never had a straight wheel

anyway, here is the result of the geometry

[4ndee]

Were did you go? And how much? We don't have allignment kit at work.

[g.lewarne]

Were did you go? And how much? We don't have allignment kit at work.

sent ya a PM

[Navz]

Were did you go? And how much? We don't have allignment kit at work.

what he said

glad you are pleased with the results.

[g.lewarne]

dunno if im allowed to say as they are not affiliated with IMOC in any way *yet*

[Draven]

dunno if im allowed to say as they are not affiliated with IMOC in any way *yet*

You can recommend a place even if they aren't affiliated with IMOC. as you are a customer.

If it was them coming on here trying to sell then it would be a different matter.

[g.lewarne]

CarCheck, Plymouth (plymstock area - Billacombe road)

£89 inc VAT including *however long* it takes them to get it right or as close as

Nice guys, Darren knows his stuff and the equipment was top notch

[g.lewarne]

just an update - the pads are now fully bedded in and my god - the brakes are freaking superb

[BatFink]

I have had mintex 'M series' on cossies and Gti's also a Quattro too.
They are a fabulous upgrade, but they have allways burnt up a litter quicker than Pagid,Black Diamond, Tarrox or Brembo....also they do create quite a bit of 'dust' as they wear, so if you can afford Tarrox or Brembo then there is a reason they are that expensive, pagid are a great middle of the road pad and last longer than the Mintex, though the Tarrox are expensive, they wear well and not too much dust aswell as fabulous bite.
So if you clean your car every week it wont matter.....just my useless thoughts after owning 23 or maybe 24 cars...cant remember....brain giving up now.