I need new rotors and pads on my -95 XJS.

Any recommendations on what brand parts to get?

 

For ordinary to moderately aggressive driving I've had perfectly good results with brake rotors under brand names of Wagner, Bendix, Raybestos, Lucas, Brembo, Lockheed, and NAPA house brand.

Akebono is my present favorite for brake pads but they might not offer any for your car. My #2 choice would be Raybestos PGM Professional grade. I have a couple sets: quiet, responsive, good grip, easy to modulate.

If 'drive-it-like-you-stole' it every day there are some performance oriented choices to discuss.

Cheers
DD

 

EBC rotors and RED stuff pads. great brakes and very low brake dust.

 

Thank you Doug and Ron!!

Seems like I, yet again, have hit a steep learning curve.

Scouting around on the web it seems EBC and Akebono get high praise virtually everywhere, so I'll go with one of them. Question, though - EBC offers red, green, and yellow versions of their pads, and saw somewhere that the yellow are the lowest in dust. Do they also have less braking power and or/do they wear faster? And what is the difference between organic, ceramic, and semi-metallic pads apart from price?

Then there are rotors. There seem to be standard, slotted, and slotted-and-drilled versions out there. What's the difference in performance and wear?

There also seems to be a difference in noise levels. Are any combination of pad/rotor technology noisier than another?

Sorry for all the newbie questions...

F.Y.I.: I'm a reasonably careful driver, and I certainly don't drive like a car thief. But I do, occasionally, break the speed limit on the freeway. :-)

 

Red pads are for hot brakes. Ie track use.
Yellow pads are mid temp.ie Light track and street
Green pads low temp. Ie street use

 

Yellow and blue stuff is the ultra high performance pad and not the best choice for street use. I run red pads and stock rotors on my XJS. Slotted and drilled do produce some noise I'm told but I have not used them. My wife's 99 XJ8L runs green stuff on OEM style EBC rotors. They have better cooling veins between the outer surfaces. When I removed the 99 front rotors and compared them to the EBC's you could see a difference in the vein design for better cooling. Remember brakes require surface area to change forward motion into heat energy, my way of thinking is slots and or dimpled surfaces remove surface contact area. If you are going with slots and dimples you need to increase rotor size to compensate for the lesser contact area. In racing applications the brakes are much larger than stock in both the pad's surface area and the diameter of the rotor. You see that small contact area on the pad and think of a slot going under the pad as the rotor turns and you loose some contact area. Look at the brakes of a XKR and compare them to the brakes on a XK8. the slotted rotors are larger with larger pads than the non slotted.

 

Then IMHO you don't need any of the specialty hi-performance stuff. Jags have good brakes as-is. It take fairly aggressive driving to overwhelm them.

For your driving just decent quality replacement parts will fill the bill.

Cheers
DD

 

Thank you all for your patience with a newbie!

I'll go with stock rotors and EBC Redstuff pads. Makes sense to me. :-)

 

And also consider caliper overhaul if it has ever been sitting or fluid is old as sticking pistons drag and cause uneven wear.
Seals at easy to get.

 

I'll do that, and will also take a look at the wheel bearings while I'm at it.

 

slotted and drilled in stock size will take a little more pedal effort but have a lot less break fade in track use or heavy breaking.

not much need in a car that does not see track use or aggressive mountain driving. stock breaks are good for a few really hard breaks in a row before they heat up and start to fade.

 

just finished my front brake overhaul.

new EBC Gold rotors slotted & dimpled, new light weight 4 piston calipers,aluminum.

new stainless steel brake lines