Re: Excessive Brake Dust

#1

As far as in stores, some Benz and BMW dealerships have the regular wheel
cleaner (which is the most gentle). It can also be had online (along with a
lot of other great products) from www.carcareonline.com The first time you
should buy the kit (which is pretty expensive for what you get, but it comes
with a good sponge and a spritzer).After that, just save the spritzer and
buy the 1 liter refills. The www.p21s.com website lists all the official
stores which carry it, but as I said, you might have luck at an MB or BMW
dealer. Also, if there is a harley shop near you, call them and ask if they
have a wheel cleaner made by S1000 (I think it's 1000, it might be a
different number). S1000 is the same stuff as P21S, it's just cheaper. Don't
know if they market the wheel cleaner under that name though.
Richard
BTW-as far as what's causing the dust, I believe DRP535 answered that.
"John Lee" <aksan3 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

Okay, I'll go buy some of that stuff just in case. Where can one go
about getting this? Is it available at any auto parts store?

Thanks,
John

#2

*snip*

Quote:

You don't. What you do need is to change your brake pads ASAP. As it's a
new car I'd take it back to the dealer you bought it from before you drive
it much further and get them to do it for free. The current pads are
gouging the discs something shocking everytime you touch the brake pedal
and the discs are *much* more expensive to replace than just the pads.

Are you saying that the extra brake dust generated on the sides of the
car are due to the "gouging the discs" that you mentioned?
Unfortunately I bought my car from a BMW dealership that's not THAT
close. Is this something that I can just bring to any dealership? I
don't know if it's a warranty issue or something that any dealership
will honor.

Thanks
John

#3

It doesn't matter what dealership you take it to, but for me I always
thought its a good idea to build a relationship with a particular dealer.
Richard
<John Lee> wrote

Quote:

*snip*
You don't. What you do need is to change your brake pads ASAP. As it's a
new car I'd take it back to the dealer you bought it from before you
drive
it much further and get them to do it for free. The current pads are
gouging the discs something shocking everytime you touch the brake pedal
and the discs are *much* more expensive to replace than just the pads.

Are you saying that the extra brake dust generated on the sides of the
car are due to the "gouging the discs" that you mentioned?
Unfortunately I bought my car from a BMW dealership that's not THAT
close. Is this something that I can just bring to any dealership? I
don't know if it's a warranty issue or something that any dealership
will honor.

Thanks
John

#4

Quote:

It doesn't matter what dealership you take it to, but for me I always
thought its a good idea to build a relationship with a particular dealer.

Yah, that makes sense. I guess I'll build a relationship with my local
dealer out of sheer convenience. I hope they don't hold any grudges
for not buying from then. *grin*

John

#5

Quote:

You don't. What you do need is to change your brake pads ASAP. As it's a
new car I'd take it back to the dealer you bought it from before you drive
it much further and get them to do it for free. The current pads are
gouging the discs something shocking everytime you touch the brake pedal
and the discs are *much* more expensive to replace than just the pads.

Wrong. The pads are doing what they do ... generate dust. They're actually
a pretty good match for the rotors and replacing them with OEM will do
nothing and with aftermarket could have several impacts, one of which is
increased rotor wear (also less dust, more dust, longer pad life, reduced
pad life, etc).

R / John

#6

Since I'm going to wash my car real soon to see if it's still
generating break dust on the sides of the car, what kind of "soap"
should I be using? I gather the same soap can be used on the wheels as
well as the rest of the car. I know that the brake dust is sorta
abrasive and I don't want it to scratch the paint. Or is this an
unwarranted concern? Either way, what do you recommend to clean the
car if I'm doing a quick "soap and water" wash?

Thanks!
John

Quote:

As far as in stores, some Benz and BMW dealerships have the regular wheel
cleaner (which is the most gentle). It can also be had online (along with a
lot of other great products) from www.carcareonline.com The first time you
should buy the kit (which is pretty expensive for what you get, but it comes
with a good sponge and a spritzer).After that, just save the spritzer and
buy the 1 liter refills. The www.p21s.com website lists all the official
stores which carry it, but as I said, you might have luck at an MB or BMW
dealer. Also, if there is a harley shop near you, call them and ask if they
have a wheel cleaner made by S1000 (I think it's 1000, it might be a
different number). S1000 is the same stuff as P21S, it's just cheaper. Don't
know if they market the wheel cleaner under that name though.

#7

You mentioned "meguire". What is that?

John

Quote:

Special car wash designed for cars (ie not liquid ivory, not tide, use car
shampoo). My personal favorite is Sonax gloss shampoo, closely followed by
P21S. However, unless you want to pay for fast shipping, both of those would
be hard to get real soon (ie, I doubt you'll find them in a store). The
cheap meguire's is IMHO the best meguires (and the best that a generic ar
stuff store would have), but it's a little strong so I recommend you dilute
it. Get a good brush (and I don't mean those cheap nylon bristle brushes you
find in most stores) or, if you do order the sonax and the p21s wheel
cleaner from www.carcareonline.com, get one of his australian sheepskin (not
synthetic, but the one that's real sheepskin) wash mitts, and make sure to
jiggle it out in the bucket often. www.carcareonline.com has all sorts of
write-ups and recommendations on what to use when. Read some of the stuff in
their how-to articles. It's fairly useful stuff. You can use body stuff on
the wheels (in fact that's best, but sometimes it won't get everything),
but, of course, don't use wheel stuff on the body.
Richard

#8

I actually spelled it wrong, it's Meguiar's. It's a decent car care products
company for the most part, and the reason I mentioned it is that it's easy
to find in local stores. I wouldn't use their wheel cleaner though. I had a
set of older wheels (so they are more prone to stripping, but still P21S
didn't strip them), and I used megiuars on them. It worked so well, the
parts of the concrete driveway it got on became bright white, and it
stripped a lot of the wheel paint.
Richard
<John Lee> wrote

Quote:

You mentioned "meguire". What is that?

John

Special car wash designed for cars (ie not liquid ivory, not tide, use
car
shampoo). My personal favorite is Sonax gloss shampoo, closely followed
by
P21S. However, unless you want to pay for fast shipping, both of those
would
be hard to get real soon (ie, I doubt you'll find them in a store). The
cheap meguire's is IMHO the best meguires (and the best that a generic ar
stuff store would have), but it's a little strong so I recommend you
dilute
it. Get a good brush (and I don't mean those cheap nylon bristle brushes
you
find in most stores) or, if you do order the sonax and the p21s wheel
cleaner from www.carcareonline.com, get one of his australian sheepskin
(not
synthetic, but the one that's real sheepskin) wash mitts, and make sure
to
jiggle it out in the bucket often. www.carcareonline.com has all sorts of
write-ups and recommendations on what to use when. Read some of the stuff
in
their how-to articles. It's fairly useful stuff. You can use body stuff
on
the wheels (in fact that's best, but sometimes it won't get everything),
but, of course, don't use wheel stuff on the body.
Richard

#9

If you're willing to try a non-OEM pad, the EBC green stuff
pads provide considerable stopping power (with no warm-up
required) and dust very little.

I have less dust after almost two weeks than I had after four
days previously!

<John Lee> wrote

Quote:

Hi all,
I'm on day 5 of my new BMW. I've heard of BMW's excessive brake dusts
on this newsgroup. Well, now I've witnessed it myself. To be quite
honest, even with the early warning, I was very surprised to the
amount of brake dust generated. I have yet to brake hard but I find
some sort of black powder along the rims and the sides of the car. I'm
assuming that this is the notorious brake dust. Today I had to take
another car to the dealership, which happens to be next to the local
BMW. I asked a guy working there about the brake dust and he said that
the dust should be on the wheels only, and not on the sides of the
car. Supposedly there are some sort of air flow channels on the car
that force the dust to get blown away in such a manner as to not get
stuck on the sides. So now I'm kind of confused as to where the brake
dust should be found.

Secondly, I've heard many people mention a bunch of cleaning products
to help get rid of the brake dust. Well, when I brushed the brake dust
on the car with my hand, the dust came right off. It seems that good
old soap and water will get rid of it, which was confirmed by the BMW
guy that I spoke with earlier. So when do I need these cleaning
products? Perhaps if they're allowed to sit for too long?

TIA!
John Lee

#10

Quote:

No. I'm not saying that at all. I have no idea why you're getting so much
dust on the side of the car. I've never seen that before.

Apparently neither has anyone else. *sigh* Hopefully it's just a side
effect of having new brakes. I will wash my car this weekend to see if
it still shows up.

Quote:

No it's not a warranty issue at all. The pads in the car are the original
ones designed for the car. It's just a sad reality that those pads are
shyte. They're designed for stopping the car safely and repeatedly from
speeds in excess of 200km/h and they perform this task extremely well. The
trade-off for this performance is lots of brake dust and gouged discs which
will need replacing every second pad replacement.

Why would the discs be gouged? I thought that the discs do not need to
be replaced, just the brake and rotors. I remember some people
mentioning that the rotors are replaced every two brake second pad
replacement. Are you perhaps referring to this?

Quote:

I'm assuming of course that you don't drive at speeds in excess of 200km/h
all that often. If that is the case then you'd be better off with a less
dusty pad which is kinder to the discs which will stop the car just as well
from more realistic speeds in the real world.

You'd be correct in your assumption. =)

John

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Re: Excessive Brake Dust

BMW BMW General Discussions (alt.autos.bmw)

Re: Excessive Brake Dust - 07-16-2003 , 08:19 AM

Re: Excessive Brake Dust - 07-16-2003 , 12:02 PM

Re: Excessive Brake Dust - 07-16-2003 , 12:22 PM

Re: Excessive Brake Dust - 07-16-2003 , 12:38 PM

Re: Excessive Brake Dust - 07-16-2003 , 03:23 PM

Re: Excessive Brake Dust - 07-16-2003 , 04:38 PM

Re: Excessive Brake Dust - 07-16-2003 , 04:53 PM

Re: Excessive Brake Dust - 07-16-2003 , 07:06 PM

Re: Excessive Brake Dust - 07-17-2003 , 01:38 AM

Re: Excessive Brake Dust - 07-17-2003 , 02:12 PM