205/206 GTI brake pads

Richard W

Richard W

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What's the current recommendation for brake pads for a 16 valve 205 with 206 GTI 266mm brakes?

I've currently got Greenstuff pads and they are hopeless. They have good bite from cold but after a few minutes of hard running this morning they were smoking badly and faded totally.

The car is primarily a street car and does plenty of time running around town so I don't want a pad that needs too much warming up - but I also want to be able to do a Targa Tour later this year and the occasional dawn blast through the Royal without completely losing my brakes...
 
Motive DVD had good results with the Yellow Stuff ones on their R32 GTR.
205 wise Mintex 1144 are/were the choice pad 20 years ago (God I'm getting old)
 
I have yellow stuff pads in my 206 180 and they are reasonable when cold and very good when warm.
I daily the car with the odd spirited drive and have yet to really notice the brakes fading with the yellow stuffs on.
One caveat I should add is I’m not using 266 rotors or stock 180 calipers on the front, So not a direct comparison but the pad compound and it’s behaviour should be almost identical in terms of fade if my thinking is correct.
Hope this ramble was helpful.

Tim.
 
You will find that any pad will fade at first, after a good hiding they will then start to work properly. Surprisingly I like the base Valeo pads the best, replaced the Club Racers in my 309 rally car with these and much happier now, 206 GTi brakes too.
 
Entry level Endless would be my choice.
 
ng850 said:
... once bedded in ...
Click to expand...

Thanks guys. I hadn't heard the idea about brakes fading at first before starting to work. This is I think the third time i hvae lost my brakes with these pads. Yesterday they'd get hot and fade, I'd back off and they'd come back, next hard stop they were gone again.... and so on for a while.

It occurs to me, however, that I've never bedded the pads in like you're supposed to with a series of a dozen near stops or so. The discs and pads were fitted by Huw and he had the car for hundreds of kilometres after that to tune it and try to get it right. I thought I was then just good to go, but it may be that he didn't bed them in either. If so, would that explain any of the fading problem?

If I change pads and put the Endless or similar on, do I get the discs skimmed at the same time?
 
The problem sorted by bedding in is that the resins in the new pad material get hot and release gasses, causing fade. Bedding in heats the resins enough to make then out-gas all at once and then sets them hard, so it doesn't happen in use while you're braking in anger. So after a few hundred km of heat cycles while in use they should be OK in this respect.

There are some theories that not bedding in causes glazed pads that don't work as well, but I'm not sure about that. I'd have thought a couple of hard drives like you've done would deglaze them.
 
Even if you had bedded them in correctly, they're still rubbish.
 
Are you sure the pads are not worn out?

That's the only time I have ever had brake fade on the road and I only use Graham's choice.
 
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I've had fade in the Mondeo when absolutely tanking it, but that's over 1500kg and on RDA Extreme pads. The Extreme refers to the smell they emit when they're almost on fire.
 
I remember using cheap $40 pads in a 505 rally car, descended a mountain and got the discs almost to yellow heat and they still worked fine. What would be the point of fitting better pads? I don't think white hot discs would be a good idea!
 
Stuey said:
The problem sorted by bedding in is that the resins in the new pad material get hot and release gasses, causing fade. Bedding in heats the resins enough to make then out-gas all at once and then sets them hard, so it doesn't happen in use while you're braking in anger. So after a few hundred km of heat cycles while in use they should be OK in this respect.

There are some theories that not bedding in causes glazed pads that don't work as well, but I'm not sure about that. I'd have thought a couple of hard drives like you've done would deglaze them.
Click to expand...

After bedding you will find that the pads will need to get to temperature before they work well, whereas unbedded pads are usually OK when cold. Certainly the Valeo pads after the initial bedding/ fading need to be warmed.
 
The pads and rotors have only done a couple of thousand k's so they should not be worn out!

The 16v is faster than my previous 205s and I was pushing reasonably hard but, even so, I've never pushed a standard s3 205 to brake fade before even with pretty hard driving.

The standard s3 205 that we did the Targa Tour in also never got near to to losing its brakes on standard brakes and it was also driven plenty hard on some long stages.

I have to conclude that Peter T is right and Green Stuff pads are indeed sh+t and not even as good as bog standard pads.
 
Plus 1 to what pete said. Our Endless pads are supurb.
 
You shouldnt need to skim the pads. That will happend soon enough I would think? Discs are fairly cheap anyway and easy to change if you wanted to be sure.

Cam
 
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