Why Your Brakes Suck in 2024+💨

In 2010 California introduced Senate Bill 346 which requires the use of copper in brakes pads sold in California to be reduced to near zero by 2025. Other materials include cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, and asbestiform fibers.

Copper is a great conductor of heat and why it is used in modern brake pads. This helps dissipate the heat that is generated in the brake system.

Check out this YouTuber Vehicle Virals who was experiencing a judder or vibration on his brand new BMW M2. He noticed something interesting that lots of new 992 Porsche gen owners have been experiencing as well, deep indentations or rings forming at very low miles.

Porsche owners have been noticing these rings forming and pads not making full contact with the rotor in some areas. Keyboard warriors have been commenting that these owners should just brake harder. Unfortunately, this only makes things worse.

Braking harder is only causing deeper groves and rings to form. I recently purchased a 992 GT3 and it had the same issue. Braking from 100 mph+ produced a slight vibration.

If you want to geek out about copper in brake pads check out this in-depth article. TLDR; copper plays a vital role in brake pads. Ultimately it helps in 3 areas: adjusting thermal conductivity, provides primary contact sites and improves sliding performance under severe braking.

My hypothesis on why we are seeing this in newer cars is that the decrease in copper found in brake pads is causing hot spotting and therefore materials from the dust that is produced is bonding and getting trapped between the pads and rotor. As this material cools it hardens and digs into the rotor and leaves the visible grooves or rings.

For now, Porsche’s fix is for 992 GT3 owners to order the older 991 GT3 brake pads.

I reached out to Essex Parts and purchased a new set of Ferodo racing pads. They are more abrasive than stock pads and within a few miles, my rotors looked new again! You can learn more about Ferodo and their copper free technology here. The pads I purchased are more for the track than the street and my guess is that in the future, you will probably have better luck buying track capable pads than the stock OEM set.

If you have more information on how this affects motorsports, please let me know.

What do brake pads have to do with the environment 🌎?

The materials used in brake pads are emitted into the air and deposited onto the road. When it rains, all that material makes its way into storm drains. Eventually these materials make their way into creeks, rivers and marine waters. Copper is the primary concern because of its toxicity to certain species of algae. Algae is the base of the aquatic food chain, so it’s very important to the existence of all marine species.

Studies have shown that over 50% of the copper found in highly urbanized watersheds, come from the copper found in brake pads.

What will be used to replace copper in brake pads?

Brake pads are typically composed of 20-30 different materials that each play an important function. According to Ferodo, their Eco-Friction™ range uses a variety of metal sulphides, minerals, abrasives, fibres, ceramic particles and types of graphite to achieve similar performance to that of copper.

When shopping for brake pads, you will notice one of these 🍃 leaf symbols. Level A brake pads comply with the restrictions of cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and asbestos.

Level B brake pads complies with everything in level A metals as well as copper (5%). Level B was required by 2021.

Level N brake pads is what you will most likely start to see in 2024 and beyond. These brake pads have zero copper or less than 0.5% of total material by weight. This level is required by 2025.

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