Hey everyone,

I am, of course by the post count new to the forum as I have just within the last month bought a white 2000 Bonnie with 41,000 miles on it. It is as loaded as you could get it with leather, the nice sound system, auto climate control, the alloy wheels and a lot of other features that I have grown attached to. I have been reading the posts on this site for a little over a month and have already cleared my headlight corners and tinted the windows. Looking forward to other improvements including dual exhaust. My other play toy is a 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass 442, black with T-tops which has graduated upon purchasing the Bonneville to my garage queen and I can now drop that gas guzzling 403 in.

Anyway with introductions dispensed with I have a problem that I think I might have the answer but wanted a little advice from the experts here. I recently (two weeks ago) replaced the front pads and rotors with the good Bendix rotors and a set of ceramic rotors (I think the brand is Brake Best). Everything was right in the world until late last week when I noticed a light grinding noise and feeling when stopping. Both the noise and feel really are not noticable until under 10 MPH and then it rears its ugly head. I thought I did everything by book, bought the high quality parts, and I am now having these problems. I am thinking it is the pads, maybe I should have gotten the Raybestos ceramics. What do you all think? Sorry for the long post and great to be in the Bonneville community.

Any pad called "brake best" or "best brake" is probably 99% garbage and 1% scrap metal.

Have the store order you a set of Bendix or Raybestos ceramic pads.

I did the same thing on my 02 SE. I bought brand new rotors with a 5 year warranty and premium Bosch ceramic pads. Everything was fine until about 2 months of use the pads began grinding something awful! Everytime I appplied the brakes I could picture sever damage being done to the rotors. I pulled them off a couple of times to clean them thinking I had debris trapped in between the pads and rotors but the problem persisted, I also noticed that the pads were very rough and they would turn my wheels black with dust. I got fed up and replaced them with organic OEM pads. I turn the rotore becaus they didn't need it. I have not had any problems what so ever since then. That was about 40K miles ago.

Cheers

Some of the flat ceramic pads can become noisy after a time as the leading edge gets "sharp". Not exactly an accurate description, but sort of the idea. The quieter pads will have a beveled edge to help eliminate that. You can try beveling the edge yourself a bit with a file, and see if that quiets things down. Do just the edge and be careful not to damage the rest of the pad. The better ones will also have a slit from top to bottom about in the middle of the pad. Do not do anything with that.