0% Brake Wear on Ceramics

[leemanning]

I'm looking at a car that's a 2014 car, covered 12k miles. Asked the official dealer for a brake wear reading and they have told me that it is showing 0% brake wear and that it can be normal as they're ceramics.

Has anyone else experienced this? Sounds too good to be true....

[v12v8]

Not a Ferrari, but just had my brakes checked on my McLaren 570S.

After 13,000 miles, the pads all have 10mm left which is virtually no wear.

[F355GTS]

I'd say absolutely not, at 14k miles I'd expect to see at least 10%-15% wear if driven like miss daisy. My 599 had 45% at 11k miles but had done some track/ fast passes drives. I'd guess somebody has reset the wear rate which might suggest significantly higher wear otherwise why change it?

[Durzel]

Ceramics are very durable. Given the cost of them I would sure hope they weren't considered a consumable in the same way steels are!

I would assume that unless you're tracking the car you could reasonably expect them to last the life of the vehicle.

Them saying 0% wear is suspicious though, as above.

[Mr Moley]

My 458 is a 2013 car with similar mileage, I think the discs are 8 or 9% worn, ie c. 90% life remaining

[leemanning]

Thanks guys.

I've asked them for any supporting evidence so will take a look when that comes through.

Does anyone know if they can provide this as a print out or if it's something that simply shows up on a screen?

[Durzel]

They probably could provide a printout, if they could be arsed.

As far as I know the wear reading is essentially a computed number based on the number of times the brake pedal has been pressed, how hard and for how long. It shouldn't be taken as gospel not least of which as I imagine it can be reset like many other things can.

[mwstewart]

Inspection of the surface is the beast way to evaluate the discs. If you can get a couple of close up photos from different angles I can help

[355fiorano]

I'm no expert but form what i have heard/read/experienced.
The way brake wear is reported for ferraris is based on an algorithm in the ECU that estimates what the disc wear is based on how you drive (i.e braking force, speed, time etc). This can be reset by the dealer back to zero and should only be done when you change the discs
You can get an SD printout form the dealer to show what is there but if its reset you will get the 0% number
When looking at cars to buy I also had problems getting these numbers and also sometimes they were not consistent if I asked more than once.

Edited by 355fiorano on Wednesday 13th June 15:26

[gcpeters]

leemanning said:

I'm looking at a car that's a 2014 car, covered 12k miles. Asked the official dealer for a brake wear reading and they have told me that it is showing 0% brake wear and that it can be normal as they're ceramics.

Has anyone else experienced this? Sounds too good to be true....

the discs might have just been replaced, by 2011 has 3% wear - when i did some digging i found out that the screws on the bells had corroded and then damaged the discs, unbelievably they managed to get all the discs and pads replaced under warranty. A result for me!

[garystoybox]

My dealer told me that carbon wears differently and basically over time ‘chunks’ fall off and the surface becomes less smooth. The only way to check wear accurately is to weigh and compare against ‘as new’ weight. That said, you should get 10’s thousands of miles out of them as long as you don’t let the pads wear too low. I seem to remember Aldous mentioning this either on a post a couple of years ago or maybe in his website?

[TISPKJ]

v12v8 said:

Not a Ferrari, but just had my brakes checked on my McLaren 570S.

After 13,000 miles, the pads all have 10mm left which is virtually no wear.

Sorry but this is not true, pads are 16.5mm new, anything less than 7mm and on track you will generate too much heat and start to damage / wear the rotors.

As above only way to check rotors is to weigh them.

[mwstewart]

Weighing isn't always accurate in my experience. Depending on driving conditions there can be material transfer which can mask the real weight of the disc, and that too can be determined by visual inspection.

[MDL111]

gcpeters said:

leemanning said:

I'm looking at a car that's a 2014 car, covered 12k miles. Asked the official dealer for a brake wear reading and they have told me that it is showing 0% brake wear and that it can be normal as they're ceramics.

Has anyone else experienced this? Sounds too good to be true....

the discs might have just been replaced, by 2011 has 3% wear - when i did some digging i found out that the screws on the bells had corroded and then damaged the discs, unbelievably they managed to get all the discs and pads replaced under warranty. A result for me!

My screws are corroding too thanks to all the salt. Asked Ferrari if they can be replaced - and of course the answer was no, we only replace the entire thing. Which basically means, I will eventually have to find somebody else to take them apart and replace the screws ... would be interested though if the discs were really damaged by the corrosion or if they just replaced them as a matter of normal practice (clearly damage to the disc would not be ideal and ruin my plan...)