Duralast? Just Say No!

[rs695]

I put this out there for anyone considering auto shop rotors and pads, and in particular, Duralast: Don't do it! In a pinch on a cross country road trip, I had a mechanic with lots of fans on Yelp install the "top-of-the-line" cmax gold pads and rotors on my 2006 A4. I had some qualms about the brand, but was reassured that these were no worse than OEM.

I picked up the car, drove it about a block or two before I turned around and returned it. Mechanic bled the brake fluid three times to get the brakes to bite, and I noticed a significant enough improvement to leave somewhat satisfied. Then earlier today, I touched the brakes at about 60 mph to stop at a yellow, didn't get the stopping power I was used to, stomped the brakes, then totally ran a red light.

Simply put, I felt like I was driving a different car. My brakes were nearly on the floor, yet there was no discernible ABS, let alone nearly the bite or stopping power I had before. My little 2.0T is no speed demon, but I've always loved it for its handling and stopping abilities. The latter is barely better than what I'd get on a Honda with these Duralast pads.

Mind you, this happened a few hours outside of San Francisco -- imagine driving the hills of SF with spongy brakes! I didn't want to, so I stopped at a stealership to make sure the brakes were bled properly, and they were. Unless I'm missing something (entirely possible), the brake/rotor combo is the only logical culprit. Stealership wanted to charge $460 for labor and material for front pads only! (I kindly told them where they could take that.)

Anyway, if I had found an onjective testimonial on thse duralasts (versus a tired old rant about how anything and everything from autozone sucks), I definitely would have stopped my mechanic and ordered better parts. Hopefully the next dope thinking about going this route will catch this post. That said, I'm not at all convinced that OEM is the only way to go for quality pads/rotors either. I plan to return these and dispute the charge if AZ won't refund, so curious to hear if there are any other aftermarket brands that people swear by. I drive my car to get me safely and comfortably from A to B, and couldn't care less about cosmetics and dust. Just want my old brakes back!

[Leor604]

Lots of choices out there such as Stoptech, Hawk, EBC, Pagid etc. I doubt Duralast is on any enthusiasts shopping list.

Pick a compound that matches what you are doing with the car. For instance, do not get a "track" compound thinking that if it works on a 200mph racecar, it should be fantastic on a street car. They will not bite when cold and would repeat what you already experienced.

For basic street driving, you won't go wrong with OEM pads, but you may want to have an indie shop do the install to save $$$ over the stealership.

[TFSI]

Those duralasts are for grannies. Stomp on the brake wayyyy before the stopping line.

[ECS Tuning-Audi]

You said the brakes were bed, how did you go about doing this? There's a specific way to bed brakes correctly to optimize braking power. Unfortunately if the proper procedure is not followed you can experience poor braking. Luckily it can be cure pretty easily. Most of the time turning the rotors and some heavy abrasive on the pads will get you back to square one.

I've always followed the bed in procedure below.

Click HERE

If you decide to chalk up your current pads and rotors shoot me a PM and I'll be happy to quote you!

Jason

[VroomVroom]

Total FWIW... Despite some reservations, I followed the advice of two cronies and went with those same Duralast Gold products when replacing front rotors and pads on my wife's '07 Lexus. They've been on more than 22k miles now (which is more than we got out of the original OEM set, btw...kindly replaced at no charge by the dealer), and she's had no complaints. There's a rear set in the garage that will go on next weekend.

Granted, this is a larger and more luxurious Camry we're talking about, and it gets driven accordingly. Point being, though, unless you're Mario Andretti, the Duralast stuff is certainly good enough for routine driving. I strongly suspect your issue goes deeper than the rotors and pads, especially when you speak key words like, "spongy," and, "nearly on the floor." You mentioned successful bleeding, but what's the fluid level? I'm thinking something was missed - likely by the original mechanic, with a mere passing glance at the dealership.

[ddillenger]

Sounds like someone didn't bed them in properly, or possibly remove all the parafin wax from the surface before the install.

[rs695]

Some time has passed since I posted this one, and after driving the car a while with these same pads and rotors, I really can't complain! I've had a couple of mechanics look at the car since my cross country road trip, each of them very qualified, and everything in the brake assembly looks good to them. I'm no mechanic -- far from it -- so I won't even try to explain why they were so crappy right after install (or for that matter, why they've improved), but I'm pretty happy with them now. Granted, I'm not the most demanding driver, but I'm in Seattle now where we have plenty of rain and hills, so good braking is pretty important. I'm sure there are better brake/pad combos out there, and maybe I'll find some warts on these as they age, but no complaints whatsoever since those first 300 or so miles!