Just a note really of experience buying brake parts.
Going on my recent experience buying front & rear brake pads for the NC, the supplier was ok, the product ok, I hope (not driven yet since fitting)
I wanted Brembo products, probably because I’ve heard they are a decent brand but every one will have favourites I suppose.
Anyways it turns out all I got were the pads, nothing else, I suppose it didn’t show anything else on the Euro car parts website, so not unexpected.
So it seems if you want the backing plates/shims tough, you’ll just have to reuse the one’s you’re removing. Well i did but they aren’t very good.
So turning to my daily driver’s brakes I ordered from a different supplier, a random eBay supplier, checked out the product and ordered. For a decent price, again Brembo they arrived today. Very good indeed, I got the full fitting kit, clips caliper bolts and backing plates fitted to the pads, hurray well done Simply car parts of Nottinghamshire.
Moan over, so be aware of what you actually get, those little missing parts can be so important.
Well actually those pictured are for the rears on my daily driver a SEAT Toledo, so totally useless for our NC’s.
Unfortunately I couldn’t find much in the way of a full kit (Brembo) that had everything in the same as the SEAT set for my NC.
I did want Ferodo actually, I got a a full kit for my last NC, clips, backing plates etc which were great and a great price. Sadly that supplier on ebay hasn’t got those any longer and nothing Brembo either.
I’m finding sticking in Brembo in a search on eBay brings up stuff related to my vehicle a bit hit and miss or priced high. Finding brake parts for my Toledo (Brembo) is easier as its widely used for quite a few VAG models, still doesn’t excuse the fact for the Mazda they’ve omitted the backing plates but I suppose it’s done to a price, discounted and all that.
Hers a link anyway, but they are for a SEAT rears.
I have used Brembo pads exclusively on my current MX5 and they have been fine…However… The last set that I put on about 3 weeks ago are considerably more “dusty” than the previous sets.
I found that the Ferodo gave off more dust than the Mazda pads they replaced. The upside they were pretty good at stopping the car, a selling point when I sold my last NC. The buyer, remarked how good the brakes were.
Brembos road pads do spit out a lot of dust but for me work well both on road and track. They are not track pads in any way so if you overheat them they will go but I also use road tyres so I limit each stints to 15 minutes and tbh I do prefer to keep the car momentum and im not heavy on brakes.
One thing I will say I did compare longevity of EBD bluestuff and the brembos and the brembos were just as good (but with more dust) and I had as much life out of them as the EBC .
With the considerable price difference I’d go brembos every single time.
I replaced the rear pads on my NC MX-5 in 2018 with P49044 Brembos (was cheapest from Amazon, with shims, no clips), but only because they had been damaged by rusty discs (from two winter weeks in a Gatwick car park).
I was not impressed by the contact areas offered by the Brembo shims. Instead I cleaned up and re-used the ten-year-old existing OEM shims and spring clips which appeared to be stainless (no hints of any rust, looked like new after the clean).
I replaced the OEM front pads (stamped Mazda and Ferodo) on my Mazda3 in 2021 because I was driving it more and could not help noticing they were so slow to bite then suddenly grabbed, only half worn after five years, just a bit useless.
The new P49050 Brembos (from ECP, no shims, no clips) fitted with the immaculate old cleaned-up Mazda shims and clips were a vast improvement in all respects, and still are two years later.
I’m very happy with the Brembo pads, but never used their shims or clips!
The Brembo kit pictured is for my SEAT daily drivers rears. Fitted just Brembo pads to my NC, the discs are fine.
On the daily driver just the NS rear disc is wearing irregular, a wider band (rusty) on the outer edge than the OS. Weird when I first spotted it so I stripped all the brakes last year and everything was fine, except the irregular pad wear on the NS rear.
The pad appeared to start clearing the rusty part again but it still doesn’t look right. Anyways for a 9 year old car with 32k miles on the fronts are looking pretty good and definitely won’t fail an MOT. The rears however are getting the new pads and discs before the months end, which is MOT time.
I would be very wary about buying brake components from eBay. There are so many counterfeit goods about its not worth the risk. I would always but direct from the manufacturer or from a well established legitimate supplier.
Simply Car Parts and indeed quite a few other reputable companies have eBay shops too.
A minimal bit of research will very quickly show you what is what.
You can also get some very good deals on quality premium parts.
I think you will find our friend who sells wind blockers etc also has an eBay shop.
A fair few of us have bought the leather handbrake and gear lever gaiters too off eBay.
My point is don’t just discount eBay because others tell you too.
As you saw they have different compounds made for different situations. My mate has had a yearly subscription with opentrack for years and has used the lot. Whatever you can name he has used them and swears by the w5 compound for track in terms of value for money. (the plot shows how many trackdays he has done using the same pads taking their price in consideration)
For a brake pad that can reach to 450°C and not disintegrate I would expect the disks and callipers to suffer. These pads will only be used on track (and will still use Brembo pads for the road).
I’m not planning of cooking my brakes either so I will get some titanium shims to try block some some of the heat reaching the callipers as well.
I changed my daily driver rear brakes yesterday, pretty much straightforward, easier brakes I’ve worked on.
I wouldn’t have bothered as there’s plenty of life left in the discs and pads but I had this strange wear pattern emerge on the NSR disc. Last year it got stripped down (both sides) for investigation, nothing I found that could suggest why I have a unswept ridge on the NS outer face of the disc different to the OS, very strange.
Me wanting everything looking good I swapped out all the rear brakes.
NS disc removed bottom of pic.
thus I have a brand new set of those
