okay, so just over year ago, car and driver did a good article about how many hard stops you can do to a production car before the brake systems suffer from brake fade. they tested mainstream sedans, luxury suv's, and sports car, and in each group they have represenatives from japan, america, and germany.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...top-tech_stuff

now nissan represented two of the categories with two separate models, in the luxury SUV segment, they had the new infiniti FX50. and in the sport car segment, they had the nismo 350Z.

after 2 panic stops in the FX, the brake fade was tremendous! it just sky rockets off the charts and is nothing like the results of the other two vehicles.

in the sports car segment, the nismo Z has the same results after 5 stops and then it starts acting just like the infiniti. i know that these two cars are similiar platforms, so they probably share a lot of braking hardware, and the Z being lighter than the FX is probably what allowed it more stops before throwing in the towel than the FX.

but then, this month, car and driver did their 4th annual lightning lap, where they go to VIR with about 2 dozen or so performance cars and set lap times around the track to bench mark how much performance for the money the cars actually have. it is kind of like Top Gears power lap board.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features..._3a12.0_page_8

but in this event, the brakes on the nismo 370Z went from present to missing in action with absolutely no warning. this resulted in the nissan crashing on a corner where it was supposed to brake from 130 mph to 40 mph for the turn. brakes are not supposed to just disappear, brake fade is something that is gradual and somewhat predictable.

what on earth are they doing wrong? bad choice of pads? low boiling point on the brake fluid? it just seems strange that they would drop the ball on such a critical piece of hardware for a presumably track ready car.

 

another thing i was thinking about is maybe they have small brake fluid resevoirs that heat up quicker.

 

My Murano seems fine

 

On both our Murano and Quest, the breaks have worn out quicker than on our Toyotas.

 

while i'm not implying that the brakes are failing during regular driving and commuting. these were tests of how the brakes fade after several consecutive panic stops, and when hot lapping around a race track. it seems weird that given the sporty nature of the infiniti fx50, and the nissan Z, that they would have better resistence to brake fade, especially when compared to many other cars in their class going through the same tests.

 

never hot lapped the Murano but the brakes never seemed to fade