What is a Brake Pad?

Your brakes seem to be having issues and you take the car in to get it looked at. The mechanic starts speaking about brake pad issues. Ummm, what are brake pads?

Your brake system works by applying friction to a moving part of the wheel. The friction causes the wheel to slow down. There are a few ways this is accomplished from a design perspective. There are brake drum system and brake rotor systems. The brake rotor system is the most popular system on consumer cars and the brake pads are a component of it.

The modern brake pad is a piece of metal backing that is then covered with a block of material that is applied to the brake rotor to stop the car. The quality of the brake pad is determined by the material used in the pad. Common materials include asbestos and metal linings. The better the quality, the higher the price.

Asbestos may seem like a stunning choice. Asbestos has been found to cause lung cancer and Mesothelioma in those who breathe in asbestos fibers. This problem, however, primarily occurs where people are working with the fibers such as doing insulation work. Just having it on your brake pads is not going to raise much risk and the asbestos pads are heavily treated to minimize problems.

Still, why use asbestos? If it didn’t cause health problems, asbestos would be viewed as a miracle product. It is nearly impervious to the effects of extreme heat. Given the fact heat is a massive problem with brakes, the use of asbestos simply makes sense as it contributes to much longer life for the pads.

What is a brake pad? It is the part of the brake rotor disc system that presses upon the rotor to cause the wheel to slow down. Brake pads are also the part of the system that routinely needs to be replaced. You can find quality pads here:

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