Brakes

Hi all,

Coupe has gone off for rust treatment this week, i should get it back next saturday which then leads me to brakes!

The brakes atm are not good to say the least, its stood around alot so i think the pads have had it, and the inners of the discs are apparently in bad shape! So new disks and pads is a must, along with new flexis (showing wear) and front brake pipes (1 is rusty! - others been replaced at some point...).

So in terms of brakes, i was warned off "cheap" brakes, but what relates to standard.

I've seen EBC discs and pads for £130 (front) - am i in the right ball park?

Any gain to the drilled/grooved discs other than higher risk of cracking and the additional noise under braking?

Comments appreciated.

Lee

mtec disc's from ebay are a good buy , I used drilled and grooved disc's on my 360bhp coupe with no problems -

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fiat-Coupe-2-0-20v-Turbo-Fr-Rr-Pads-Drilled-Brake-Discs-/110525744740

or

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FIAT-COUPE-2-0-Turbo-20v-Front-and-Rear-Brake-Discs-/290490045562

I've used these too, great braking ability for the money

What about in terms of noise?

I've got a A class atm that has the standard drilled discs and that makes no noise, but i've been in other cars that had "non standard" drilled discs and they were noisey almost like when you wash a car then drive it down the road.

Normal road use they are fine but hit the track and you start to get some noise but I would rather have better brakes with some noise than crap brakes with no noise .
You can get just drilled discs from mtec if you read the advert .

Hi all. New to coupe ownership and the only issue we have with ours is very squeely brakes at slow speeds under light pressure. They are the drilled Brembo's and I was thinking that new genuine front discs would cure it as the pads are new. From what I read on this thread it sounds like it's a common feature and I'd be wasting my money, or is there a cure?

The discs won't make much if any difference to squeal, it's the pad and the caliper/pad guides that do it.

You can try anti-squeal shims like:

http://hardbrakes.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=6_7_1193_1194&products_id=31

or anti-squeal spray for the rear of the pads :

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/WURTH-SABESTO-...S-/190836981791

I found both helped a bit (maybe 20-30% improvement) but by far the best solution is switching to the proper Fiat pads rather than any 3rd party pad. Cheap 3rd party pads are the absolute worst for it due to having more metal in the compound. Expensive 3rd party pads are usually better but not as good as the genuine Fiat part.

The Fiat pads have an extra diagonal chamfer specifically to stop squeal, no other pad seems to have that design feature:



The pad guides in the caliper will often lift slightly due to corrosion and then the pads need filed down to fit the reduced gap between the guides. You then get a slight unevenness between the guides and pad which makes them more likely to vibrate and squeal so a clean and rebuild of the calipers can help but by itself will often not cure the squeal if still using a 3rd party pad rather than the original Fiat pads.

On my coupe with Pagid discs and cheap Pagid pads the brake pedal may as well have been connected to the horn it was so bad, tried various solutions but switching to genuine Fiat pads (still with the Pagid discs) was the only thing to cure it.

Thank you GrahamL, very helpful. I did try greasing the pads and cutting grooves in them with similar results, 30% improvement. Genuine pads it is then 👍

Are the Fiat pads still available from Fiat?

Not sure if they still are but a few years ago they were £150+ from Fiat, whereas you can pick them up on ebay (eg. from Alternative Autos) for about £100 to £120.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FIAT-COUPE-2-0...7-/152183351848

BTW make sure to fit the Fiat pads the correct way around as they are sided and directional.

Yeah I printed off your image to check the direction.

diagonal chamfer to the rear by the looks of it.

I ordered some today from my local dealer, just over £40??? Hope they are the right ones in that case. He did double check though.

Are you sure that was for the front?

A bargain for somebody:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FIAT-COUPE-MK1-2-0-220-BHP-TURBO-96-01-OEM-FRONT-BRAKE-PADS-WEAR-SENSORS-/152159589514?epid=1509710540&hash=item236d6b148a:g:-vIAAOSwgY9Xf5uA

I spent years sodding around with coper grease, brake shims and then trying different discs. Now I use Pagid discs. No squeal at all.

I don't do track days admittedly, but I have boiled brake fluid before I got fade...

I did ask that question and he assured me it was fronts. Will let you know once they've arrived, fitted, and tested.

This guy has a container full of NOS Fiat parts from a closed dealership somewhere.
He doesn't list all of them on ebay so worth asking a question for specific stuff.
I bought both front door seals off him last year for £50!

The ebay ad for the brake pads is Steve at Alternative Autos in Huddersfield - long-time supplier to the Coupe community - ultra-reliable and good prices

he's also a certifiable Italian car nut (drives a DeTomasa Pantera IIRC)

My genuine Fiat pads arrived today. They are made by Pagid as it happens. Price was correct £40, and once fitted they cured the squealing. Result!

For the non-20V Turbo cars, I believe the front pads are common???

Original were from Ferodo and seem to use a high-friction compound with a GG DOT rating. Look out for the originals or the Ferodo FDB1052. Grippy, smooth and quiet, and cheap.

Mine's an LE with Brembo.

I know I was just pointing out that the original pads for the non-20V turbo cars are also of a surprisingly high spec.

I have been doing a load of research into the the pads used for my cars (n/a Coupe, S-Type and XKR Jaguars). In all three cases the original selection seems to be just about the grippiest street pad out there (all DOT GG rated which is pretty much as good as old tech pads get. Only carbon brakes are better. Gone back to original on all three and they all have more cold bite, are smooth and quiet.

OK, it makes no difference to stopping distances (that is basically down to tyres) but OE is not always cheap and nasty and the engineers seem to know what they are doing.

Seems the lower price for original pads is correct. I've just updated my Eper to a much newer version and the coupe 20vt pads are now listed as "pad set - classic line" @ £41.70 , so we've apparently now reached "classic" status with Fiat themselves.

Ah ok, thanks for the info 👍.