That sucks, if it's deposits that usually gets them cleaned up but sometimes it's too far gone.

 

True but I said that under the assumption you have a car that is expected to be able to do repeated 100-30 events as part of the design. I won't expect something like that out of a Malibu or something but when I bedded my brakes on the 460 I did 4 moderate 80-20s then 10 min of no braking and a ABS 130-30 to make sure they worked well. Drove another 20 min to fully cool them then parked, no brake smell the whole time.....if I tried that with a Camry or something it would cook the hell out of the brakes on the 3rd stop if that and you would smell it for hours after.

Normal cars you only need to do 3 60-30s at moderate/light then 3 40-5 hard braking followed by a nice cool off.

 

My X5 has developed a small oil leak, so I brought it to my mechanics shop last week, and much like I suspected it is the upper oil pan gasket. He's going to be fixing it, I have no idea what it's going to cost, but I found a video of what it takes to get it done.

 

Not true of a car with quality brakes.

I would hope they would last 7-8k miles lol

Rotors are cheap. The OEM rotors for the LS literally cost $60 each. Its not even worth the labor to remove them and resurface them, just replace them.

Ugh, thats no fun

 

Hahaha. I guess what I'm saying is I'd have expected to replace them, do some sort of brake work by now. Plenty of times I brake pretty hard, the traffic here has turned into nightmare Atlanta almost with the crazies.

 

Watched your video, enjoyed it.

Yeah, not gonna be cheap as you already know.
Most of the cost will be probably be labor.

Looks like he pulled the power steering rack and engine cradle to get clearance and move all suspension components out of the way. Yikes!
I'd get a new OEM oil pump while he's in there with all new O-rings like in the video.
Didn't know BMW's run a chain driven oil pump.

 

Ouch, I feel for ya. I've done 3 of these on 7 series cars

 

I got a set of those visibly glowing.....good luck killing them lol!

 

Well, that's why I said that, all else equal, ceramic rotors can withstand much higher heat than steel rotors. They are arguably the highest-quality brakes, but, as AJT123 pointed out, are often expensive as hell.

 

Ceramic rotors have their own problems. They are extremely expensive, they can chip or ever crack, and they get damaged by all the reagents sprayed on the roads during the winter. They are really mostly made for race tracks, they are not practical for street cars.

 

And track rats all use steel due to frequency of replacement anyway.....

High end steel brakes can take a lot of abuse, the brakes the LSs come with are considered a high performance option on something like a Mustang or Scat pack that requires you to pay more or get one of the high trims. Lexus always provided the flagship with opposed multi piston fixed calipers and very heavy/durable vented rotors.

 

^^^^Yes, I'll agree with the race-track statement. Though I could be wrong in my memory, the first ones I can recall on street-legal cars were on the Porsche GT2 and GT3, which are often driven on tracks as well as the street.

 

Not necessary in any road situation...

 

It's an expensive option on any car, and unless the car is taken to a track for high endurance racing where it brakes hard many times in a row, regular steel brakes will fare better due to concerns I listed before. Most people just get them for bragging rights.

 

Ironically enough, most people who do track their cars regularly, swap to iron brakes for track days, unless they're sponsored. The main selling point, IMO, is that for normal (or even aggressive) street use, the brakes will NEVER wear out, and they also emit zero dust, so your wheels always stay clean. A couple of the cars I'm considering for my next purchase offer CCBs as an option, and though I'm leaning heavily against it, I am at least considering getting them.

The perfect solution IMO is Porsche Surface Coated Brakes (PSCB), which are a much smaller upcharge when new, and have a similar longevity/low dust properties with their PCCBs (The calipers are painted white to underscore this point), but are comprised of tungsten-carbide-coated iron rotors and specially-formulated pads to achieve those results. They don't have the insane heat capacity or lightness that CCBs do, but they're not brittle and absurdly expensive either. If I bought a car that had these as an option, it would 100% be the first box I checked.