Brake Pad replacement at 15k KM!

How many miles do you have?
My brakes are still okay and I have 52,000 miles.
I have heard that certain cleaning product may be bad for the carbon ceramic rotos and pads.

Are the pads expensive?

DO your rotors need to be replaced too?

 

My guess is OP doesnt have CCB?

 

He has about 15,000km which is less than 10,000 miles....Something must be wrong if he doesn't track it unless his aggressive driving style is seriously aggressive ;-)

 

front pads are about 1400$

 

You should have the 7 years service included. So, from my understanding, they are just allowed to invoice the material!

The material can't be 5.800 US$.

 

Rear pads are around $1800 USD at Ricambi America, but I assume should be included in the maintenance package for California 30s.

I seem to recall reading that the ASR uses the brakes, especially the rear ones, as part of the control over the car when cornering fast. This effect is most pronounced in Comfort mode, where the system intervenes more often and earlier, so if you drive aggressively around a lot of corners in that mode, the brakes may wear faster than "normal". Perhaps this is what happened to the OP. I know my Jag XFR has a similar system (complete with e-diff!), and people have reported similar fast rear brake wear on their cars (some less than 10k miles - I got around 18k miles out of mine, but I use Dynamic Mode whenever taking twisty roads, and probably more often than most drivers).

This is where I wish there were a separate shock setting on our cars, because there are times when I would prefer a comfort setting for bad roads, but nonetheless want sport mode level (late, less often) traction intervention. If you are an aggressive driver, you might consider turning the mannetino to Sport as your default mode, but the more aggressive throttle response in that mode is a bit harder to modulate in heavy traffic.

All this said, 15k KM seems really low miles to have worn out the rear pads. I'd have them checked thoroughly to see if they are sticking. All Californias have CCBs, don't they?

 

Two days on the Mid-Ohio race track and my 2010 California ate 1/2 of the brake life. I changed them at 21,000 miles (32,000 k) as I remember. I looked at the pads before I did the track thing then looked again when I got home, wow what a difference! $3,000 for a full set of pads all the way around + $400 labor. And I got 10% discount since I am retired military.

So if you are REALLY having FUN driving your Cali I would expect them to last as long as you said.

Now, my FF info says the FF brakes should last the life of the car under normal use we will see about that!

Rick

 

When I was at college I used to go on track days in my crappy car

Before a track day I bought new front brake pads

No need to replace the drum brakes at the rear

I bought the cheapest pads so could find as a struggling student

I went through about 4 or 5 hours of track driving

And I heard a scraping metallic noise under braking

Sent to the pits, and the brake pads were touching metal on the discs because there was no friction material left

Moral of Story, don't buy the cheapest pads because I had to stop driving and go home early

I expect replacing the discs on a Cali would be $10-20k

Anyone know how much the retail price for the carbon discs?

 

Stability control uses ABS on all four wheels and can drastically shorten pad life, but 15K kms seems a bit excessive. Brake pads are wear items and not covered by warranty or the 7 year maintenance plan, as far as I know.

 

close to 20k for 4 disc

 

I might press the brakes a bit softer now I know that

I paid $10k for my BMW M5

So do I get the replacement discs or two BMW M5's for the same price?

 

California discs have a weight marked on them and after a certain computed amount of use the computer will say it is time to weigh them and if too light you replace the rotors. Yep, $5K each. The carbon slowly leaches out of them so they get lighter.

Rick

 

Lowest price I found on rear rotors (257102) was ~$2800 from Maranello Classic Parts. Ricambi has the fronts for $6500 each and another Euro sourcs has them listed at ~2300 euros. Ouch. Makes me glad I have Mov'It ceramics and not Brembos. Rotors do not wear much at all.

 

The high cost is why serious track hounds often switch to steel brakes. But most Cali owners will not track their cars much if at all. I think it's repeated heavy braking that keeps the rotors and pads at elevated temps for extended periods that wear them quickly, so ordinary or even vigorous street driving, including canyon carving, should not be a problem.

 

There was a fierce debate over the advantages of CCB vs Steel. Some claimed it was a weight advantage. Others, a matter of performance.

In the final analysis, CCB brakes are better than steel in terms of performance on the track.

Steel are cheaper and may last longer . But in a race, CCB win.

Of course they cost more and may not last as long, but there is a reason why no F1 teams use steel anymore.

 

Honestly, not that bad.

Seriously guys... if you can afford to buy a car for $225K, you can afford $1500 in brake pads for it every couple of years. Ask guys with older model F cars what they pay for in maintenance and upkeep on their cars. They would say they wish they spent only this much to keep it on the road.

I did a brake job on my Mini Cooper S at 30K miles. The cost: $1200. Cars are expensive today.

 

Does the California have a non-carbon option? I know some people who like to track often opt for steel rotors to keep the costs down on other Ferraris.

 

Mayor- Only trouble is Ferrari wants to say the rotors are shot after two pad changes. That can get expensive when Ricambi wants $6500 per front rotor and they are more at the dealer.

 

I never said steel rotors are better, just cheaper!

 

I have experience with both my california and my ZR1 corvette. I thought i would mention they use the same brake system and probably the same size . It is my understanding that currently a company you maybe familiar with that has ZR1 corvettes that are used 100% for track they say they get about 15000 track miles on a set of pads . Chevrolet apparently claims the rotors should last the life of the car (assuming they do not get damaged by wear through etc.) I know i went to Spring mountain motorsports in Las vegas for a 2 day ZR1 roadcourse using their car and they are run pretty hard I know I was running around 145 on a road course then down to 25 or 30 for a hairpin etc this for several laps it seems we did ten lap sessions that car had several thousand mile on it. Also I looked up replacement rotors and they were around 1800 per . Now before everyone corrects me they may be different sizes but the point is they ARE the same product .
the Ferrari could have a softer pad and with a little more weight I could see it wearing faster but 15000KM for a set seems excessive.

 

Larry- The Corvette rotors are ~392 mm, IIRC, vs 398 for the later Ferraris, but owners have had luck using those rotor rings with the Ferrari hats. Front rotors are $1200 from online wholesalers, way less than the $6500 for OEM from Ricambi.

Had not heard any longevity numbers on the ZR1/Z06 rotors, so maybe Chevrolet has different pad materials or a Gen 2 system. The GTOs came with Gen 3, so I always wondered what happened to Gen 2.

 

Fair enough I would think there is some difference. The california also weighs in a little higher which could contribute some to tread wear. I know at spring mountain which runs the car pretty hard more or less all day long had should be as rough as anyone would expect on a car. By the way if you want a great time they have a nice course and you get to break their car and tires sure beats gambling 2K away.
LarryH

 

Good inform on cost of brake pads. Are they the same pads that go on the 458?