Are TRD pads a significant improvement over the stock ones?


The car is only 3 months old but I just wish the brakes "grabbed" a little harder than they do.

Even on a uphill waiting on a stoplight I have to give the brakes more pressure that I would like to to keep the car from rolling back. Thats just 1 example but hopefully you understand.

 

no, they aren't going to do change that. if your car strts rolling down a hill while your holding the brake pedal, you have some serious problems.

in daily driving, high performance brake parts don't make a difference. their benefits are the stronger initial bite, and resistance to brake fading. if anything, they will perform alittle worst until they warm up, and probably be very noisy.

trust me, if you want the brakes to grab more, just push the pedal further and harder. your car isn't going to roll backwards on a hill, or anything unless part of your brake system is broken.

heck, when my tc was brand new, i could sit on a decline at a light, and hold the brake pedal so lightly, my brake lights weren't coming on.

 

You can get that by upgrading to pads with a higher coefficient of friction than stock. Not sure how much better than the TRD pads are in that regard, but I know EBS's Green Stuff is much better, yet they don't require warm-up, they'll function better than stock even when cold.

Such an upgrade isn't likely to help your situation when you're already stopped, but they will help you stop better by "grabbing" a little harder, which is what you indicated you're looking for.

 

i know what your expecting, and its more like what you'd find on a midsize family car like a nissan altima or honda accord...pads wont fix it, it seems to be the strength of the cylinders. I personally hate overly sensitive brakes..i feel like i can't "feel" the wheels/brakes...but to each his own. sry

 

Well the Tc isn't built as a sports car or even a sport coupe at that. So the Oem pads are mostly meant to better achieve, comfort, sound and reduce dust. They best way to fix this is to go with a more aggressive pad, but as you go up the ladder in pads with better friction coefficient you begin to sacrifice noise, dust and comfort. But I know the feeling you are describing though, its just an overall lack of brake torque, but thanks to the after market there are ways to fix that. The cheapest and best way to begin fixing this is with pads. I've had EBC greens and currently drive on Hawk HPS's, and the Hawks have a better bite. There is zero noise and the amount of dust they cause is a little above normal. The Hawk HP Pluses and Porterfield R-4S's are pads with much higher friction coefficient but these pads also produce much more dust, noise and wear the rotors down quicker. If you still need more brake torque I would do larger rotors, they will increase overall brake torque.

Finally if you already have nice tires, pads and bigger rotors I would think about doing a BBK. Usually I wouldn't even think about doing this on a DD car, just because of the financial aspect of it, they are overall very expensive to buy and maintain, (pads/rotors) usually the outcome of a BBK will produce much more brake torque than the friction of tires can handle too, giving you very sensitive breaks.

 

I still barely have to hold the breaks to stay on an incline. My brakes are like brand new. i had them checked cause of a little squeking but it was the rainy condisions up here. i dont have that problem anymore though. I rarely have to do more than touch the brake pedal cause it works so well. On my old car i had almost 50,000 miles and the brakes were perfectly fine. You gotta know how to brake and be more aware to let your engine do some breaking even if you have an automatic.

 

thanks for the very helpful answers especially in the last 2 guys.

I do wonder thought, what is meant by comfort in regards to brakes.

I might try out some Hawk pads down the road.

 

Comfort in regards to breaks to me means i know i can stop if i need to. It also means I know how much brake i need to stop at certian distances. I also dont want a pedal where i have to mash it to stop.

*edit*

I would also like to say i feel very confident in my stock braking system. It has served me very well so far. I think eventually I may do the Stoptech stage 2 cause i plan on upping the hp eventually. But I shouldnt need brakes for awhile and its gonna take me a lil while to aquire what i need hp. So the stock system is fine for me right now.

 

the stock brakes are fine, i think it is just that you don't like the amount of pedal travel the car gives you before you really feel the pads begin stopping the car.

i think that your just used to other cars that grab faster, and that makes you feel more confident in their braking systems. but if the tc had shorter pedal travel in the brake pedal, it would do the same thing. and short pedal travel doesn't mean better brakes.