What is brake fade?
All pads contain some organic (living) materials. Resins that bind pads compounds together are organic-petro-chemical products. When Brake Pads reach high temperatures, the resins revert to gas and cause the pads to “aquaplane” on a film of gas (this is called “fade”). Some pads only fade once or twice and then settle down (green fade or bedding-in fade). Many cheap low quality pads will suffer from continual dynamic fade, sometimes at surprisingly low temperatures.
A. Pad bite is called the coefficient of friction. At high temperatures, all brake pads have a reduced coefficient of friction. This is called brake fade. Power Stop engineers all of our friction compounds to resist brake fade. This assures safe, consistent stopping power. Our technical data page shows benchmarking information. Different grades of pads will have different fade characteristics. The Z36 pads are by far the most fade resistant pad that is commercially available.
Under heavy braking, you get alot of heat build up. That heat causes a couple of problems. Hot gasses can build up and expand between the pads and the brake surface. This reduces the contact area between the two surfaces and reduces stopping power. It can also cause the brake fluid to boil in extreme situations and add gas to the brake lines. Gases in your lines will make the brakes very ineffective.
