[mpeteritas]

Gents,
I recently replaced my front pads with mintex red box pads, and I left the existing VW rotors entact (because they still have life left in them). Since then, the brakes are not as strong as they were with the VW pads.
I have been driving with new pads for about a month now, so they are definitely broken in.
I was wondering what you guys think... Are mintex pads just not as good as the factory pads in terms of braking power? I am guessing these pads are a little harder than the VW pads, since they are creating less dust. Is this just the tradeoff that I should expect...less dust==less braking power?
Would a different rotor work better with these pads? recommendations?
-mark

 

[Tjax]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (mpeteritas)

I always had a softer pedal with the Mintex. Tons of dust too. Go figure.

 

[phatvw]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (Tjax)

Mintex red has less grip than oem. This is immediately evident when you pull the parking brake. OEM only needs 3 clicks. Mintex needs 4 or 5.
I don't think that dust and braking power are necessarily a tradeoff. For example, my Hawk HPS rear pads dust less than OEM but provide more grip. The different rotors out there won't make much difference. Just stay away from slotted and/or cross-drilled cause they will eat your pads faster and won't help you stop any faster on the street. (Slotted can be marginally better in the rain, but not worth the overall hassle IMO.)
If you are not satisfied with Mintex, but don't want to go nuts with upgrading your brakes, Hawk HPS is a good candidate. I had Mintex pads all around and I dumped them after 2 weeks. They're cheap, but still a waste of money IMHO.

 

[Banditt007]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (phatvw)

Quote, originally posted by phatvw »

Mintex red has less grip than oem. This is immediately evident when you pull the parking brake. OEM only needs 3 clicks. Mintex needs 4 or 5.

^^^^^^^ I second this. I hate mintex redbox. Hey phatVW......are the hawk hps pads similar to the oem when using the parking brake? Thats one thing that has driven me nuts w/ the mintex redbox pads. I have new rear rotors and hawk hps waiting to get installed once the redbox's finally give up.

 

[phatvw]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (Banditt007)

Quote, originally posted by Banditt007 »

^^^^^^^ I second this. I hate mintex redbox. Hey phatVW......are the hawk hps pads similar to the oem when using the parking brake? Thats one thing that has driven me nuts w/ the mintex redbox pads. I have new rear rotors and hawk hps waiting to get installed once the redbox's finally give up.

Yep the Hawk HPS are about the same as OEM... just a little bit grippier.

 

[Mad Dragon]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (phatvw)

Quote, originally posted by phatvw »

Mintex red has less grip than oem. This is immediately evident when you pull the parking brake. OEM only needs 3 clicks. Mintex needs 4 or 5.

Are you talking about stopping the car or parking it? If you need 4-5 clicks to keep the car parked, you need to adjust your parking brake.

 

[mpeteritas]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (phatvw)

Glad to hear I am not the only one disappointed with these mintex pads. So Hawk HPS huh? I will check them out. It would be nice to have better stopping power than the mintexes are giving me. Grippier than OEM would be even better! From what I can tell the OEM equipment (pads and rotors) on these cars is made by ATE. Is that correct? My only real complaint about the OEM pads was the dust. It was just so much f-in dust and it was really hard to clean off, unless I cleaned it like every couple days...
Also, what is your opinion about when to replace the rotors? I have about 1/16"-1/8" of wear into my front rotors (which are OEM). I assume there are actual values here to pass inspection, but I don't know them.... perhaps its time to replace the rotors too?
-mark

 

[phatvw]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (mpeteritas)

Quote, originally posted by mpeteritas »

Glad to hear I am not the only one disappointed with these mintex pads. So Hawk HPS huh? I will check them out. It would be nice to have better stopping power than the mintexes are giving me. Grippier than OEM would be even better! From what I can tell the OEM equipment (pads and rotors) on these cars is made by ATE. Is that correct? My only real complaint about the OEM pads was the dust. It was just so much f-in dust and it was really hard to clean off, unless I cleaned it like every couple days... Also, what is your opinion about when to replace the rotors? I have about 1/16"-1/8" of wear into my front rotors (which are OEM). I assume there are actual values here to pass inspection, but I don't know them.... perhaps its time to replace the rotors too? -mark

Yeah you'll like Hawk HPS a lot better than Mintex. It does dust, but I found its very easy to wipe off and is fairly light in color. I think the oem pads are made by Pagid, but they tend to swap manufacturers around from time to time.
I'm not sure what the spec on rotors should be. I know they start out at about 25mm. I would imagine, you don't want to go below 90% thickness or 22.5mm, but thats just a guess. THats something a service advisor tech at the VW dealer can tell you over the phone.

 

[mpeteritas]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (mpeteritas)

Thanks for all the great replies. I think I might have to get me-self a pair of Hawk HPS pads. I was wondering if anyone has gotten a good price on these somewhere they can recommend? I see them at ecstuning.com, but they are pricey...$89 per set.
Also, since they don't come with a wear sensor, is that sold seperately, or do you guys just forget about it and connect the sensor leads?
-mark

 

[phatvw]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (mpeteritas)

Quote, originally posted by mpeteritas »

Thanks for all the great replies. I think I might have to get me-self a pair of Hawk HPS pads. I was wondering if anyone has gotten a good price on these somewhere they can recommend? I see them at ecstuning.com, but they are pricey...$89 per set. Also, since they don't come with a wear sensor, is that sold seperately, or do you guys just forget about it and connect the sensor leads? -mark

http://www.raceshopper.com
They will email you a quote.
For the wear sensor, you can use the VAG-COM device to disable the computer warning, ignore the warning, or splice the wires together using the connector from your old pads. The wear sensor is just a switch that opens when the the pad gets to the bottom, so no risk of messing up your car or anything.

 

[Mad Dragon]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (phatvw)

My Brembo OEM rotors have "min thickness 23mm" stamped on them.

 

[dmkozak]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (mpeteritas)

mpeteritias, did you turn the rotors when you replaced the pads? If not, your new pads are only using the crowns of the rotor ridges to stop the car. In other words, if you didn't turn the rotors, it's like using less rotor surface to stop the car, which means your braking performance decreases.

 

[Ceilidh]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (phatvw)

Quote, originally posted by phatvw »

Mintex red has less grip than oem. This is immediately evident when you pull the parking brake. OEM only needs 3 clicks. Mintex needs 4 or 5.

Hello Phatvw!
(Thought I'd say hi to you on a different forum...

)
I might be the only one out here who feels this way, but the Mintex Reds (have them fore 'n aft on my GTI) make it much easier to heel & toe coming into a corner, and for that reason I like their feel much more than stock. The brakes certainly don't grab as immediately as a lot of other pads, but they're very linear and progressive, and that makes them easy to modulate; plus the harder pedal pressure is what makes heel & toeing so much easier.
That being said, I'm trying out the PBR Ultimates (will install them next week) to see if I can reduce the dust a little more....
Cheers!
- Ceilidh

 

[phatvw]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (Ceilidh)

Quote, originally posted by Ceilidh »

Hello Phatvw! (Thought I'd say hi to you on a different forum... ) I might be the only one out here who feels this way, but the Mintex Reds (have them fore 'n aft on my GTI) make it much easier to heel & toe coming into a corner, and for that reason I like their feel much more than stock. The brakes certainly don't grab as immediately as a lot of other pads, but they're very linear and progressive, and that makes them easy to modulate; plus the harder pedal pressure is what makes heel & toeing so much easier. That being said, I'm trying out the PBR Ultimates (will install them next week) to see if I can reduce the dust a little more.... Cheers! - Ceilidh

HA! I think I know what you mean.
With the VW pedal arrangement, you have to press the brake down quite a bit before it matches the level of the gas pedal. I believe this is a safety design. So this means that if you have a less-grippy pad, its easier to do heel-toe when you're braking at say 4/10 of max decelleration because your foot is closer to the floor.
With my super grippy pads, I flat out cannot do heel-toe if I am braking at 4/10 because my foot isn't close enough to the gas pedal. I can only do it when in the 6/10-9/10 range which is rarely safe to do on the street. The fact that I cannot heel and toe all the time doesn't bother me because it forces me to be smoother with the clutch. Since the RPM's I reach around town are so low, heel-toe doesn't buy me much additional smoothness for my passengers. On the racetrack when I am using 9/10 braking, I can do heel-and-toe where the added smoothness really counts

 

[Ceilidh]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (phatvw)

Quote, originally posted by phatvw »

HA! I think I know what you mean.........With my super grippy pads, I flat out cannot do heel-toe if I am braking at 4/10 because my foot isn't close enough to the gas pedal. I can only do it when in the 6/10-9/10 range which is rarely safe to do on the street. The fact that I cannot heel and toe all the time doesn't bother me because it forces me to be smoother with the clutch. Since the RPM's I reach around town are so low, heel-toe doesn't buy me much additional smoothness for my passengers. On the racetrack when I am using 9/10 braking, I can do heel-and-toe where the added smoothness really counts

Phatvw, somehow I knew you'd have the background to understand!

One point of elaboration, however: it's not just the pedal height (which is as you say) -- it's also the pedal pressure. To heel & toe properly (as you know) one has to maintain a constant braking level during the throttle blip. That's much, much easier if the pedal's pretty firm, so that slight variations in pedal pressure don't make a huge difference in braking force.
In hard driving, the grippy pads can work with heel & toe, because (as you point out) the pedal goes down to a decent level -- but also because you're applying enough force that you can use the pedal as a nice pivot point for the ball of your foot. But in normal on-the-street driving (where I like to practice heel & toe and work on my smoothness there!

), the high pedal + "grabbiness" of the grippy pads make it really, *really* hard to smoothly heel & toe with gentle-to-moderate braking (I can physically get my foot onto both the pedals, but it's hard not to have the braking force fluctuate all over the map -- it's really unpleasant!).
As a sidenote (not for you, Phat, but for the newbies), the cars I've driven that were really easy to heel & toe all had a low brake pedal and (crucially) a very, very firm brake pedal where you need a lot of leg strength to brake hard (kind of the opposite to what a lot of people here seem to want, where a little flex of the toe will bring the car to a screeching halt

). A lot of race cars have this sort of "gain" (which some people here might call "lousy brakes!!!") -- the extreme was a Formula Ford (Skip Barber school) that literally bruised my foot until I changed to stiffer-soled shoes LOL ....
Anyway, no criticism intended (not even in the slightest) for people who like the really grippy pads -- I just wanted to point out that for a small minority of us, the Mintex has a better feel. All the best!
-Ceilidh
P.S. -- will let you know how the PBR's are, dust-wise, after installation and bedding in....

 

[mpeteritas]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (mpeteritas)

Thanks for all the great replies. I think I might have to get me-self a pair of Hawk HPS pads. I was wondering if anyone has gotten a good price on these somewhere they can recommend? I see them at ecstuning.com, but they are pricey...$89 per set.
Also, since they don't come with a wear sensor, is that sold seperately, or do you guys just forget about it and connect the sensor leads?
-mark

 

[phatvw]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (Ceilidh)

Ceilidh,
My roommates Subaru WRX had a better pedal feel and arrangement for heel-toe. Also, a late model Corvette that I had the pleasure of sitting in, seemed absolutely perfect with a much stiffer and lower pedal, but then thats a real sports car

Dan

 

[mpeteritas]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (phatvw)

Yeah, I definitely dig a grippier feel. I recall the 1999.5 Golf I had for a while had the grippiest brakes of all. They definitely took some getting used to, but once I adjusted to the brakes sort of grabbing, i loved that kind of feel. I don't like to have to really stomp on the pedal to get the car to stop, which is what I am experiencing now...
-mark

 

[Ceilidh]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (mpeteritas)

Quote, originally posted by mpeteritas »

....I don't like to have to really stomp on the pedal to get the car to stop, which is what I am experiencing now... -mark

Hello Mark (and Dan, too)! The thing is, a very small minority of us (ok, maybe it's just me) prefer a brake pedal you really have to stomp on; plus that's what many real sports and racing cars have.

Anyway, I've got the rear PBR's on; hopefully the fronts after Thanksgiving. No idea about the dust yet (I want to wait for them to fully bed in before saying anything), but you two would probably like the pedal feel -- much, much grippier than Mintex Red, with oodles more initial bite. (And yes, heel & toe has once again ceased to be a street option on my car, LOL...) Will let you know how things feel when the fronts go on too....
Cheers!
- C

 

[mpeteritas]

Re: mintex pads == soft brakes? (Ceilidh)

Hey guys,
Just put on new brembo plain rotors, and the Hawk HPS pads this morning. I must say I am impressed already. These pads are super quiet and they are definitely grippier than both stock and mintex (and they are barely broken in yet...). They are definitely what I was looking for. Just wanted to say thanks for the great info and advice! werd.
-mark