i have 14k miles on my z and i am swapping to the HPS brake pads.. should i turn the rotors or will that be a big difference?

 

Some people may disagree, but I say you should turn them.

Brake pads and disks sort of "work things out". They wear down until they match. (Those are the little grooves you can feel with your ingernail.)

If you get new shoes and make the rotor surface flat you get the best match.

You might get away without turning them. It sort of depends on how they look. But I would say if they don't look REALLY smooth, turn em.

The only snag is that some cars have disks too thin to turn. If they tell you that you can't turn your Z rotors then you might as well give it a shot as is. (assuming they look OK). New rotors can be pretty expensive.

 

I don't think it's necessary to turn them since you'll have to bed the pads in anyways once you install them. I swap my pads every time I go to the track, and I've never had a problem. However, with certain types of pads, it may take a little while for the pad material to be transferred...

 

Should not need to turn the rotors unless you have some warpage or scoring or major pad material deposits.

You should do a very good bed-in of the new pads.... 10 stops from 60 to 10 and then 10 stops from 80 to 10; let the brakes cool for an hour or so then do it all over again. This will heat up the pad material and allow it to conform to the rotor shape and deposit a thin layer of the new pad material evenly on the rotor.

Also... most pad manufacturers will send bed-in instructions with new pads. Do what they say if that's the case.

Hope that helps.

PeteH

 

thanks for the input

 

Don't turn em unless they need it. And if they need it take as little off as possible. Turning rotors that don't need it is the second biggest ripoff in auto repair after fuel injector cleaning. Places like Midas will sell you a set of their cheapo pads with a "lifetime" guarantee & automatically turn your rotors to the minimum. When their cheapo pads are gone & you come back for replacements, guess what? They "discover" that your rotors are too thin and sell you new rotors at a tidy profit.

 

10 extra stops 80->10 is probably excessive. Check out Stoptechs advice:
http://www.zeckhausen.com/bedding_in_brakes.htm

 

Hawk sends a little note with the brake pads. They recommend to scrub down the rotor with some sandpaper. They say 150 grit, but I personally prefer 220. You don't have to do much, just enough to scuff up the surface of the rotor.

 

That should be all that is needed, you just want to remove brake pad material from old pads so you can bed in the new pads. Turning the rotors just removes too much material that you do not need to unless the rotors are not true and you are having braking problems.

 

This sounds like a good idea to me.