Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Brakes Brake and brake line question

I was considering buying some Mintex street pads and the stainless steel braided brake lines from BAT. Does it make that much of a difference if I only do the front versus doing the fronts and rears?

Thanks,

The fronts do the lyons share of the stopping so you will notice the improvement on the fronts much more. It is not uncommon to use better brake lining on the fronts.

I noticed a huge difference in brake feel with my Aeroquip brake hoses from BAT. The pedal feel is much firmer and more well defined--no mush (and I don't race my Contour). I only have them on the front right now, too. Eventually, I'll probably do the rears, but for now I'm not terribly worried about them. I HIGHLY recommend them to everyone.

My 2 cents is that when your buying stainless steel brake lines that you MAKE SURE THERE D.O.T approved, otherwise, if ya ever get into a fender bender and there some snooping around they can say it was due to inproper braking. They cost more but well worth the law suit.
Just like seat belts, my 4pt. are D.O.T fuxking like $150 apiece!!

Funny, I just did alot of research on the subject today, called BAT and talked a guy named Eric, got ALOT of info. He said the 1144 pads would be great for the street and track. These pads are desinged to work cold and hot, he said this was the only one that does this and performs well. He also said not to waste my money on rear brake lines, not nessessary because they do so little of the actual braking. He was a VERY big help! He also owns a SVT and has the Mintex 1144's that have lasted him 30,000 with half the pad left. I told him I like to drive red light to red light as fast as I can, he said ditto.

Anyway...after talking to him I am convinced. I also plan to buy the Premium rotors and brake lines for the front too.

Later,

Thanks guys for the responses. I think I'll just do the fronts and put the extra money towards getting a 3L block (at this point, way in the future).

Thanks,

Yeah, Eric will be really helpful until you want to return something that came with a serious defect. The rotors that came with my BAT Big Brake Kit were severely warped, and they (Eric was who I spoke with) would do nothing for me, except to tell me to go ahead and cut them. I will likely not be buying anything significant from BAT again.

In this day and age there is absolutely no excuse for needing to machine brand new rotors, especially if they were marketed as premium rotors. There are many things in the BAT catalog that I find very interesting, but they will not be getting my business until they do something to make amends with Matt. There are many things that he could do to help make up for this, the very least would be to give him credit for future purchases for the cost of machining the rotors. I don't know how much Matt paid to have them machined, but the common price if removed from the car and hand carried to an automotive machine shop is $15.00 a pair. Matt would have still been inconvienenced with doing his brake job twice but sometimes that is the price of DIY projects.

To help put this in perspective the Ford rotors have not needed to be machined when new for more years than I can remember (and that is more than a few). Ford is close to introducing Motorcraft rotors. They should be out in a month or two. They are behind the projected launch date because they are making sure that the quality control is where it should be. The vendor purchased new equipment to meet the volume anticipated for the contract and they are making sure that they will not be producing junk to try to keep up with demand. So far only two of the four work stations are in production and they want to build up the supply before releasing them.

The last set of new rotors that I saw installed on a Mystique last week had made in Germany stamped on the box. They will probably wear as fast as the other Contour / Mystique rotors (which I'm not happy with). The rotors on that Mystique had to be replaced because they were at minimum thickness and could not be safely machined any thinner. Being made in Germany is not all bad, as the rear rotors on Navagators are also made in Germany, but they are so hard that they are hard to machine and wear very little. I do hope though that the new Motorcraft rotors made here in the US for the Contour / Mystique will be made of better materials and not be as soft as the original equipment.

I guess that I have rambeled a bit. It does upset me that Eric has not done something for Matt to make things right. I hope that Eric makes an attempt to extend the olive branch and then concentrate on future business. It might help if someone let Eric know about the bad will that he has generated from this.

I was actually considering buying the premium rotors. My car only has 11K miles with very little excessively hard braking. If I do the pads and brake lines, should I just forego the rotors?

Also how easy is it to install the pads and brake lines. With a little rugrat running around, I don't have as much time to work on my cars as I used to.

Thanks,

There is no reason to replace the rotors before you need them. Wear the original pads out and then if the rotors are too thin to machine replace them with the best that you can find at that time.