My mechanic said: just deal with it (brakes)

pesj · Jun 10, 2010

Took my car for an oil change today, also brought the brakes to the attention of my mechanic. When you decelerate quickly you can feel a slight pulsing in the pedal, and I can almost hear it too. Today I would get the car up to speed, throw it in neutral and brake, trying to feel/listen for it.

My mechanic said, well you have a Mustang GT, and you aren't the 1st guy to bring this to my attention (bear in mind, my car only has about 28k miles on it). He said I can learn to deal with it, or upgrade the brakes to a set of slotted/cross drilled rotors and new pads. He said he could turn the OEM rotors, but the problem would just arise again. I guess the stock brakes aren't good enough, especially for spirited driving (although I do very little of that).

Anyone else face these issues?

Big Large · Jun 10, 2010

same deal with my 05 gt. when i get on the brakes hard it seems like it just doesnt have enough brake for the car. i will prolly upgrade to solve the problem

walter · Jun 10, 2010

Stock Mustang GT brakes are inadequate for the car. Upgrading them is a great thing to do not just for performance but for safety. That said you may have glazed your brakes a little. Normally if I see that there's enough pad left to not warrant replacing and the system feels a little uneasy I pop the pads off scuff them a little bit with some sand paper (light grit) and also the rotors too and finish off with some brake cleaner.

COBESGT · Jun 10, 2010

Brakes are for whimps, "Drive it like you stole it"!

I hate to think of all the bad habits I'm teaching my 13 year old when he's in the car with me!!!!!

I would agree that the brakes do seem a bit weak, especially when you're trying to slow down from 120 mph. Bigger would be better.

pesj · Jun 10, 2010

thanks all...

so many priorities...I was on the Stillen website and they have a good deal on cross drilled/slotted rotors and pads, which ironically is about the same price as the stupid air compressor that is needed for my SUV (cause it tapped out and needs replacing). Damn priorities...

SpartaPerformance · Jun 10, 2010

I never heard of this problem. How hard and short do you guys stop??

pesj · Jun 10, 2010

^^ exactly. If I drove like "normal people" aka conservatively, I'd have no issues. However, I do not. Something about this car turns me into a maniac

walter · Jun 11, 2010

All the cars I have driven before had much better brakes then this one especially my 240sx with 300ZX brakes could stop on a dime and do it every day from 100+ repeatedly without any hint of fade (except from the tires ). Sometimes I wish I could say its a necessity because of all the track time but the reality of it is drivers are some of the worst I've seen here. Just today I was stopped at an intersection and a red Tacoma flew right by me and right through a red light at 65+ and still accelerating. I like to know that if I have to put a stop to it there's no doubt that it'll happen without any delay.

Pesj I do have to suggest if you can to specify a slotted rotor not cross drilled. Drilled rotors are weak and can crack with repeated use or if you use a more aggressive performance brake pad.

pesj · Jun 11, 2010

You think slotted over cross drilled? I saw Powerslot had some good pricing on the American Muscle page, maybe I'll look into those. The rotors on my bike are cross drilled, but then again they only have to stop hundreds of pounds, not thousands..

ct07gt · Jun 11, 2010

I have slotted rotors and I don't think it makes that much of a difference. If your rotors are shot, get some takeoff rotors for like $40; New Take-Off - Brakes . Upgrade to some Hawk HPS pads or something similar and you should be fine for street driving. If you want you can buy some brake ducts, but that might be overkill for the road. Stainless lines might help with pedal feel.

walter · Jun 11, 2010

pesj said:
You think slotted over cross drilled? I saw Powerslot had some good pricing on the American Muscle page, maybe I'll look into those. The rotors on my bike are cross drilled, but then again they only have to stop hundreds of pounds, not thousands..

Absolutely, cross drilling weakens the rotor so when they heat cycle little tiny cracks can develop between the holes, with slotting that doesn't happen plus the it helps with outgassing and cleaning of the pads when you use them especially in wet conditions. But as others put it if you don't do much performance driving you may just want to stick with a stock blank rotor and save some money.

Personally while I'm in there I would just buy the rotors and get the job done right.

Wind-Farmer · Jun 12, 2010

I think the mustang has damn good brakes for stock, I mean; going from the mustang for example to my Five Hundred which has 4 disc, it sucks. Then I drive my grand prix, even worse, and my Jeep, mustang beats them all.

Then again, I drive like a sally for chance of brake dust on my wheels

walter · Jun 12, 2010

Wind-Farmer said:
I think the mustang has damn good brakes for stock, I mean; going from the mustang for example to my Five Hundred which has 4 disc, it sucks. Then I drive my grand prix, even worse, and my Jeep, mustang beats them all.

Then again, I drive like a sally for chance of brake dust on my wheels

I guess I spoiled myself having driven only sports cars but that's to be expected if you compare economy sedans and SUVs.

The "base" brakes (non brembo) in my 350Z are leaps and bounds superior to the stock (non brembo) Mustang GT brakes I mean they'll knock the wind out of your sails if you stand on them. The mustang (even when new) just skittered sloppily to a slop and faded into oblivion after a couple of times of doing that trick at moderate to high speeds.

Now that said half the battle with the Mustang is also the soft supension it has and relatively cheap tires that are fitted which together makes for some lousy stopping by my standards.

FenixBirdWing · Jun 13, 2010

pesj said:
Took my car for an oil change today, also brought the brakes to the attention of my mechanic. When you decelerate quickly you can feel a slight pulsing in the pedal, and I can almost hear it too. Today I would get the car up to speed, throw it in neutral and brake, trying to feel/listen for it.

I get the same thing at lower speeds when driving conservatively. I've got this road bump that I have to go over coming back from work everyday - there's a stop sign about 100 ft. after the bump and I usually approach the bump ~ 30mph.

If I brake before the bump and continue holding the brake down thorugh the bump, after going over the bump I can feel some pulsating through my brake pedal and the car brakes pretty noticeably slower than if I were to apply the same brake pressure over a road surface w/o the bump there. I don't slam the brake either going over the bump - I'd say I depress it maybe 20-25%. This behavior (pulsating felt through brak pedal & noticeably decreased braking power as determined by distance until stop) seems to happen whenever I brake while go over bumps at 30+ mph.

I've changed my habits to avoid holding braking over larger bumps (about the size of speed bumps) and, with about the same brake pedal depression, I can usually stop in a shorter distance on a smooth surface than I can with that stupid bump in place on the road.

Nice to know someone else has been experiencing this too. At first I thought maybe there was something wrong with my ABS (the pulsating in the brakes led me to the fear that it had something to do with ABS).

mustangdave · Jun 14, 2010

I'd say it is a faulty ABS problem. Try to test it on a smooth road where no road irregularities could activate the system Be aware that if the tires start to lock up, it will engage anyway. If it is the abs, get it replcaed under warranty or your probably looking at well over a grand to fix it.Lastly,it may be a design flaw that can't be fixed, but I think we would know about that with all the Mustangs being raced at road courses.

warthog5 · Jun 23, 2010

I do have to suggest if you can to specify a slotted rotor not cross drilled.

I've had both.

Slotted are noisier. They make a whirring sound when you step on the pedal.

Have them on my F-150.

I put just the drilled units on the Mk VIII. No problems and no noise.

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Gearbanger 101 · Jun 23, 2010

Funny, my Cougar has the same size brakes as the late model Mustang and I love how well it stops. And I've got a couple hundred pounds on the S197 too boot?

pesj · Jun 26, 2010

I figure my next mod is going to be the brakes. New rotors, pads...should run around $600-ish. I could do the whole CAI and tuner thing, but I'd rather have better brakes for now

Jet Mek · Jul 13, 2010

R1concepts.com has some Drilled/slotted rotors that are stock size but they will shorten your stopping distance greatly! I had them on my Infiniti Q45 with the Hawk HPS pads and they were awsome in the NY traffic. The Infiniti was a heavy 4 door with 340 HP that I drove the wheels off. I warped 2 sets of stockers but never warped or cracked those rotors. The cost of these rotors are barely higher than stockers and so worth the money! I am almost ready to install them on my 05 GT and giddy to get them on with the 20" wheels. They look great as well!

GOLDENPONY · Jul 17, 2010

I put a set of PowerSlot rotors on a 2000 GT. The only thing I noticed was increased noise. Yea, they look good, but I saw no improvment in stopping.

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