So i got these new Hawk HPS put on this afternoon. I did the whole bedding the pads things that Hawk recommended and everything seemed fine. But when I went out on the highway tonight and hit the brakes (moderately) the car noticeably pulls towards the passenger side. I did this over and over again and still the same result. I decided to try bedding the pads one more time but still the same thing. Besides having the nose dive to the right, when I brake hard, the front passenger side wheel is the first to lock up consistantly.

My car has never done this before. This kinda sucks. Any suggestions?

 

I would love someone to shed some light on this issue as well, I installed hawk pads last weekend and did a few hard runs on the brakes and felt some un-evenness... cant get any more specific then that, they stop fast and I havent investigated further yet.

 

Did you get your rotors turned? Did you bleed the system?
I would pull that wheel off and check it to see if you missed something.

 

I have those pads also but only put them one for track weekends.
I lightly sand the rotors in addition to the bedding of the pads. I would also advise you to check all the clips and shims as well as the parts of the brake calipers by the bolts, the parts that moves as the pad wears. Lastly did you also bleed the brake system? Usually you don’t need to but doing that will eliminate a possible cause of the problem.

 

Yea I'd agree w/expo1...make sure you didn't put those little clips on the caliper slide area incorrectly on the front (the clips sorta look ok if put on wrong, but the pads don't slide in easily). That could jam the pads. Alternatively did you put the shims on wrong somehow? - I'd think that one is hard to accomplish...but

Alternatively, you could just take the front brakes apart again and do it over... being careful to look for any weird looking things as you disassemble. Got to be something...

How many miles on the old brakes & rotors?

 

Another thought - how did you force the pistons in? Could you have offset the piston in the bore and jammed it .. or did you use a piston compression tool?

 

well i havent noticed the unevenness lately...

I didnt get my rotors turned or sanded since there is only about 24K on my car and they seemed perfectly smooth.

The little shims I left off due to the fact that the hawk pads have their own metal shims built in. didn't bleed the brake system (im a n00b in the brake dept) but why would I when i didnt "open" the brake lines at all? All i did was flip open the caliper replace the pads and then swing it back down and tighten it back to normal.

The piston's on the front I just pushed in since its a regular round cylinder, the piston for the rear I know you have to turn/push at the same time, i didnt have the tool so I just VERY slowly turned it with my hand/screwdriver being careful not to scratch break anything, and yes I made sure the little metal nipple thing lines up with the grove on the piston so it fit perfectly.

 

- ok the rotors are smooth.. that's cool.

- depending on which little bit you left off that could be the problem. If you didn't put the large pad backing plates back on (shims)... ok ... maybe you like brake noise. But if you left off replacing the little bits circled in yellow on the picture... that a safety issue and I would immediately stop and put them in. Those are the bits I was refering to.

- bleeding the brakes is easy and it's a safety issue again, but w/24K and doing brake work... it's is only a couple minutes work extra. Any mechanic woth his wage should at least offer to bleed your brakes when doing a pad replacement.... you get to do it for free + cost of fluid.

Anyway, hope whatever it was doesn't re-appear.

 

those metal ships you circled in yellow are there in my car where the little horns of the brake pad slide in and are held snugly by what you circled. The part i left off was the flat metal LONG shim that covers the WHOLE brake pad right before you close everything back up (the metal pieces that are long and like 4 inches long)

The Hawk pads have these same metal pieces built into the brake pad, so i left the stock ones off. I get no squeaking or squealing from my brakes since I put my new pads on

 

Well I didn't do my breaks at all, my mechanic did and I watched. However I don't remember those metal shims in the box. My box looked like they had been opened, all that was in there were the 4 pads. All 4 pads had the same part number but 2 of them visually didn't look like the other 2, I ask the sales person about this and she said that because they have the same part number they should be the same, I was a little skeptical to say the least. My rotors as fine, they have 31,000Km on them. My mechanic checked them out and he said they were fine, no sanding needed.

Also, I just noticed that the side that pulls (braks harder) has a lot of brake dust around the mag, while the other side has nothing. Aren't Hawk HPS pads supposed to have really low brake dust?

 

Shim & slider kit is not in the pad kit, need to order it separately if you don't want to reuse the old parts. The front pads are different shaped, and slightly larger than the rear set of pads. Not sure about HPS, but HP+ are very dusty, at least as bad as OEM if not moreso.

 

Is the caliper on the grabby side sticking?? If it is is won't release properly and it will drag.

I'd pull both calipers...and re-lube the calipers and the slides and see if it gets better.

Sometimes they get sticky when you cook them at the track

 

Yes I know the fronts and rears are different, I was actually commenting on the fact that the 4 pads for the front calipers didn't look the same. It looked like 2 different types of pads, which is why I brought it up with the sales person. Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. All the pads in the rear set however looked identical. I'm going to Lordco tomorrow morning to check on a new set of front pads and see what they look like. I will also check on the shims, thanks.

 

I replaced my front rotors with racing brake one-piece slotted, and did Hawk HPS at the same time. It was my first brake job, and everything turned out flawlessly. I didn't bother with the rears though, they were in great shape.

About the shims (not the clips), you cannot use them with the Hawk HPS. They literally will not fit behind the pads. I installed the pads without them and haven't had any problems whatsoever.

 

Sounds to me like the caliper is hanging up, not slideing smoothly and straight.

 

So I replaced those Hawk HPS pads with a new set and now it breaks perfectly. Now I'm pretty sure that the old pads were different, must have been a mix up from the factory. I do like the increased breaking power of these HPS pads, can't wait to try them out on the track. Oh yeah, another good thing about these is that there is very little break dust. I usually wash my 8 and like 3 days later my front mags are covered in brake dust, not any more. It's been almost 2 weeks and my wheels still look pretty clean.

 

I put HPS pads on without turning rotors and they work like a charm. You have something else going on. Does it pull really bad? ...are you braking on uneven pavement with a car that has been lowered (having more aggressive alighment) Pads do not cause a car to pull in a different direction.

Turning rotors is a waste of time and money, unless they are already warped. If they are warped you need new rotors anyway. Why shave off perfectly good metal and reduce your $200each rotor life even further...

I've done 35,000 miles on 2 sets of pads using the original rotors, including 7 track days and 2 competitions and the rotors are still straight and true. The brakes never overheat or fade more than a tolerable amount.