[Lipper]

G'day Folks,

I just recently installed new ECS Rotors and Hawk HPS 5 pads on my M235i. Installation was fine and I performed the bedding procedure exactly as instructed.

I noticed that, on both sides of the car, only the outer half of the rotor seems to be wearing. You can't see in the picture, but the pads do extend all the way down to the hat. I've only driven around 50 miles since the install if it matters. I just attached one picture (of the right side) but both sides are identical.

Are all four pads the same or is there an inside/outside pad?

Any thoughts will be appreciated.

Ken

[pikcachu]

Originally Posted by Lipper

G'day Folks,

I just recently installed new ECS Rotors and Hawk HPS 5 pads on my M235i. Installation was fine and I performed the bedding procedure exactly as instructed.

I noticed that, on both sides of the car, only the outer half of the rotor seems to be wearing. You can't see in the picture, but the pads do extend all the way down to the hat. I've only driven around 50 miles since the install if it matters. I just attached one picture (of the right side) but both sides are identical.

Are all four pads the same or is there an inside/outside pad?

Any thoughts will be appreciated.

Ken

That's normal... you need to wait for a full contact before bedding though...

https://ebcbrakes.com/articles/bedding-in/

BEDDING IN NEW EBC PADS AND DISCS

Use brakes with minimal pressure for first 100 miles from urban speeds of 30-50 mph only. Brakes will feel very sharp and responsive but this is ONLY the brake in coating working which gives an abnormally high friction level feeling.
Drive a further 250 miles using slightly increased brake pressure and load UNLESS in an emergency in which case apply brake as hard as required.
Clean wheels off as there will be residue from the brake-in coating after bed in.
Look for a full width contact across the pad depth( rotor braking band) from the outer edge of the disc to the inner and if not achieved allow a further 100-200 miles steady driving. You will see a blue-ish band evidencing contact across the rotor face. Until this band goes from the outer to the inner edges of the brake disc/rotor the pads have NOT yet fully seated. When installing new rotors, reduced width banding is quite possible due to various tolerances and slight misalignments in the vehicle chassis and is NOT a warranty defect or a reason to remove and inspect brakes. Many European cars have SINGLE PISTON CALIPERS and these tend to “Flair” open and cause the contact band described above only to be seen at the outer edge of the disc/rotor and work its way inwards taking up to 1000 miles to do so.
After full width contact band is attained make a further 10 stops from 60 mph to 10 mph in succession with a deliberate attempt to get the brakes hot. Some smells may occur even slight smoke during this final heat up stage of the pads in early life. Then coast the vehicle for a mile to allow discs to cool. Do not pull up and park vehicle with brake excessively hot. You must try to get the discs down to below 60-80 degrees C temperature before parking the vehicle.
When parked let brakes cool to a final cool-to-touch point. Before touching discs splash a few tiny drops of water onto the disc to asses its temperature to avoid burning fingers. If the water spots cause a “hiss” you have parked up too soon and should go out and drive slowly allowing the brakes to cool further.
NEW DISCS TAKE LONGER TO BED IN

Fully bedding new pads to decent condition worn discs/rotors may take only 200-300 miles but when new discs are fitted at the same time bed in times to achieve outer to inner edge contact ( full width blue-grey contact band as mentioned under point 4 above ) can be as long as 800-1000 miles due to extra components needed to be aligned to the vehicle. To Short cut this you can ( and EBC recommend should) have EVEN NEW DISCS Pro Cut Lathe aligned to your vehicle. This process removes only microns of new disc material and shortens bed in time by 75% of the time it COULD take giving you better brakes faster and avoiding hot spotting and pad glazing.

[drodrig2]

According to the BMW service manual if one pad is wearing more than the other, it says to clean brake pads. see section 34 11 000 (https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/). Did you change out the hardware (retaining pins and expanding spring) these items may need to be replaced.

Also, how are you liking the HPS 5 Pads?

[Lipper]

Thanks Pikcachu. Even though the Hawk bedding process is different, what you say definitely makes sense.

Initial thoughts on the HPS 5 pads (even though they're not bedded-in):
- They're absolutely silent. Not a single squeak out of them yet
- Seem to be much cleaner than the BMW pads

[pikcachu]

Originally Posted by Lipper

Thanks Pikcachu. Even though the Hawk bedding process is different, what you say definitely makes sense.

Initial thoughts on the HPS 5 pads (even though they're not bedded-in):
- They're absolutely silent. Not a single squeak out of them yet
- Seem to be much cleaner than the BMW pads

yeah... i would just wait for even bands on the rotors... and then try to re-bed them in....

cause right now only half the pad is touching the rotor....

What normally happens is that given that the mechanic will not wait 1000 miles for even wear on the rotor, they just go and bed them as is which is probably better than not bedding....

if you bed them in when only half the pad is touching the rotor then all the heat will be concentrated on a small part of the rotor which is not ideal...

[HP Autosport]

Have you checked to make sure the pads are surfaced correctly? Does the inside of the rotors look the same as the outside?

[Lipper]

Originally Posted by HP Autosport

Have you checked to make sure the pads are surfaced correctly? Does the inside of the rotors look the same as the outside?

Thanks for the help. I haven't pulled the wheel off to check the inside yet. What do you mean "surfaced correctly"? I just pulled them out of the box and stuck them in the calipers. I didn't do or check anything.

Are the inside and the outside pads the same on the Blue Calipers?

Thanks again - Ken

[pikcachu]

Originally Posted by Lipper

Thanks for the help. I haven't pulled the wheel off to check the inside yet. What do you mean "surfaced correctly"? I just pulled them out of the box and stuck them in the calipers. I didn't do or check anything.

Are the inside and the outside pads the same on the Blue Calipers?

Thanks again - Ken

They are the same

[HP Autosport]

Originally Posted by Lipper

Thanks for the help. I haven't pulled the wheel off to check the inside yet. What do you mean "surfaced correctly"? I just pulled them out of the box and stuck them in the calipers. I didn't do or check anything.

Are the inside and the outside pads the same on the Blue Calipers?

Thanks again - Ken

yes, same pad.

I am sure all the pads go through a surface ground/finishing before going to the next production step. Perhaps a couple of pads weren't grounded correctly. If you can't bed-in properly after some driving, it's time to contact the manufacturer to get them replaced.