Beck Arnley Vs. Posi Quiet Plus That Voice In Your Head

[Chickenman]

^ I never use shims behind any of my Brake pads on any car. All I ever use is CRC Disc Quiet Brake spray or brush-On . Shims can add extra compressive travel to the pedal, especially the Teflon or Rubber coated varieties.  Shows up in competition events ( Track Days, Autocross, Hill climbs ). Pad shims are OK for street.. but I've never used them in the last 40 years on ANY of my cars.

 

Never had ANY pad squeal issues running with out shims. It's all about  Pad material and Rotor preparation. Get them right and there is no need for Pad shims. ( Anti Rattle clips are a different matter )

 

BTW, I've seen lots of cars in my times with horrible Pad squeal and factory shims behind the Pads. It's a common issue. Shims do not always fix poor pad materials and/or bad rotor preparation.

Edited October 14, 2015 by Chickenman

[Zed Head]

Two completely opposite experiences.  Fascinating.

[gwri8]

My front brakes squealed embarrassingly loud as I had no shims when I purchased the car.  Tried different pads with the anti-squeal goo from auto zone and it would last maybe a day.  I Tried to get Nissan brake shims but they are NLA as far as my search went.  Wound up ordering some stick on generic shims from Rock Auto on a chance. I believe they were Carlson 18066.  It was very tight getting the pads back in with the shims on but I've had only an occasional tiny squeak since.

[Chickenman]

This is what I've used on the backing plate of Pads for the last 40 years on all of my Street cars. It's a flexible rubber type of adhesive. Only stuff I've found that really works. Anti squeal products that you apply to the face of the pad are absolutely useless, IMHO.

 

 

 

Plus I do have a preference for good Semi-Metallic pads. I've used Bendix Semi-metallic and Titanium-II pads religiously for decades.

 

Only Ceramic pads I've ever used are on the back of my Audi. Akebono Euro Ultra premiums wich are highly recommended on BMW and Porsche forums. No squeal ever. On my Audi, I have Porsche Boxster calipers up front with guess what? Bendix Semi-Metallic pads. I had ATE/Brembo semi-metallic pads up front before and they were good as well ( no squeal or fade ) but a bit too dusty. I've also used Stop-Tech High Performance pads.... NEVER again. POS pads.

 

On my Autocross Camaro, I've used Hawk HPS on the street with no squealing. This is with WilWood Superlite-II calipers. That's a racing caliper with absolutely no shims no anti-squeal clips etc. I don't even use the CRC Disc Brake Quiet on those pads as I swap them out with Mintex FR1 Racing pads for Hillclimbs and Track Days and the glue gets to be a PITA. But I guess I must be doing something right overall...

 

Edit: I think the main problem is lack of quality in a lot of the Pads made these days. The common Napa, Autozone, Centric etc " house " names just aren't up to the task. That and some of the substitutes for the banned Asbestos ( which was excellent as a material in brake pads, shoes and clutch discs ) has resulted in an increase in Pad squeal.

 

Unfortunately, pads for our cars are not a big seller, so selection is getting smaller and smaller. I'm going to start stocking up on Bendix semi-metallic pads for all my cars. Closing down their North American operations is a big shock...

Edited October 14, 2015 by Chickenman

[Zed Head]

I have a can of the CRC spray-on material.  Goes on red.  Sticky.  Only worked for a short while, on two different brands of pad, one unknown, the other Beck Arnley.  (Sprayed on the back, Iv'e never heard of any treatment for the face of the pad).

 

The Beck-Arnley pads were nice pads.  Had a good feel, better than the Posi-Quiets.  Dirty though,  Still squealed, even with their stick-on shims.

 

Maybe there's something in the water here.  Regardless, the factory steel (clean steel, no polymers) hanging shims work great.  Not a peep, from backing out of the driveway to all manner of stopping conditions.  Just tried the Posi-Quiet system 'cause their ad copy said it would work, and they run cleaner.  I'll probably go back to Beck Arnley in the future.

[Patcon]

I have used the CRC stuff too, along with a product called "Pig Squeal" or something like that.

[Zed Head]

Did the CRC stuff work for you?  And did the Pig Squeal deliver you from the bad brake pads?

[Patcon]

I never had any problems with squealing brakes, maybe once, so I guess I am not the definitive test case. I haven't used it on a "nothing stops the squeal" set of brakes...

[Zed Head]

Maybe it's the rotors then.  I've seen the descriptions of material transfer from the pads and how it's important, but my rotors will pick up a light cost of rust, just sitting for a few days outside when it's rainy and moist outside.  Not much material on them, just raw metal.

 

Still, Nissan didn't design and cut hundreds of thousands of shims for nothing.  Car companies just don't do that.  One of those interesting things.

[Captain Obvious]

My only input is that I can personally attest to the fact that when your previous owner puts the anti-squeal shims in backwards with the rotation arrow pointing the wrong way, the shims become squeal shims, not anti-squeal shims.

[Zed Head]

Update about the PosiQuiet ceramic pads - don't like them, replaced them with inexpensive Autozone Duralast organic pads.  The PosiQuiets just seemed too slick, the bite didn't increase proportionally with pedal pressure.  Kind of felt like they were slightly wet and never dried out.  They looked fine when removed, as did the rotor.

The Autozone pads were just the bare essentials, not even the cheap stick on shims on the back, just bare metal.  Used the Nissan shims.  Pretty much a basic, cheap brake job.  But the brake feel is back, and they're quiet.