moonstone
Tyre Kicker
I've documented my issues with my noisy ceramic brakes over the last few weeks and thought I'd post up details of the cure so that anyone else in the same boat can follow this guide to resolve the issue for themselves.
THE PROBLEM
BMW performance brakes and performance brakes on various other cars are known for being noisy. There's lots of info on the net about why, but basically you should expect a bit of noise when applying the brakes. When that noise gets excessive usually a backroad blast with plenty of hard braking will resolve the problem for a time until it's needed again.
Where things get really frustrating is when the brakes squeal when NOT being applied. In my case, I have an M5 with Carbon Ceramic Brakes. Its the first car I've ever owned with CCBs so have never encountered this particular problem before. My issue was that the brakes would squeal loudly when driving the car (without braking) of speeds up to 40mph and in particular when cornering. When applying the brakes the problem would go away until the brake pedal was released.
Essentially the issue is usually thanks to the nature of a fixed caliper design. Which means that the pads will vibrate within in the caliper housing. If you're not sure what that means, have a watch of this video:
Because the brake pads are designed to move inside the caliper housing, the vibration caused by this movement creates noise. Once the brakes have been applied the pads don't return completely to their original position when the pistons inside the caliper retract (after you take your foot off the brake). This causes them to vibrate as you drive and creates the noise.
THE SOLUTION
Brembo is pretty much the default choice for most of the mainstream auto manufacturers. The calipers on my previous Maserati Ghibli, B9 RS5 and the wife's Ranger Rover sport are so similar that I'm convinced that they're the exact same part numbers. None of these manufacturers put shims between the back of the pads and the pistons but Porsche do. On Porsche cars they have inserts that plug into the piston and adhere to the back of the brake pads, so that when the brakes are disengaged, the brake pad is pulled back away from the disc when the pistons retract. The distances are miniscule but it stops the bad from vibrating against the disc.
The inserts look like this, with the claw-like centre part plugging into the caliper.
SOURCING THE PARTS
I originally placed and order with an online Porsche specialist but after waiting a month for them to get back into stock, I googled the part reference numbers and to my surprise Euro Car Parts sell them. Interestingly though, they're just about impossible to find on their site and I resorted to swapping the last two digits of their part numbers to find the different sizes needed.
If you're reading this and looking for these, here's what's required for the F90 M5 and for the F8X M3 / M4 calipers. Each caliper has 3 differently sized pairs of pistons. So six in each. You need three pairs of different sized inserts to match.
Need other sizes? - The weird thing about Euro Car Parts website is that when you bring up the product page for any of these, it doesn't list the size. The only place that I could see the size of them is when they appear in the "Your Recently Viewed Items" section at the bottom of the page. So if you've gone to the trouble of measuring the inner diameter of the pistons in your caliper and need different sizes than those listed above, do what I did and do searches on the part number above but change the last two digits. I found that changing 20 to 25, 35, 55 etc brought up different variations, but in order to see the size of each you need to then click on something else so that it appears in the aforementioned section of the website to see what the size is.
INSTALLATION
This is for the F90 M5 but I'd imagine most other BMW (Brembo) floating calipers are the same.
Firstly, your brakes will still make noise from time to time. I'm still getting a wee bit of noise when coming slowly into my drive when doing a hard-lock on the steering wheel, but the overall noise is reduced by about 90%!
THE PROBLEM
BMW performance brakes and performance brakes on various other cars are known for being noisy. There's lots of info on the net about why, but basically you should expect a bit of noise when applying the brakes. When that noise gets excessive usually a backroad blast with plenty of hard braking will resolve the problem for a time until it's needed again.
Where things get really frustrating is when the brakes squeal when NOT being applied. In my case, I have an M5 with Carbon Ceramic Brakes. Its the first car I've ever owned with CCBs so have never encountered this particular problem before. My issue was that the brakes would squeal loudly when driving the car (without braking) of speeds up to 40mph and in particular when cornering. When applying the brakes the problem would go away until the brake pedal was released.
Essentially the issue is usually thanks to the nature of a fixed caliper design. Which means that the pads will vibrate within in the caliper housing. If you're not sure what that means, have a watch of this video:
Because the brake pads are designed to move inside the caliper housing, the vibration caused by this movement creates noise. Once the brakes have been applied the pads don't return completely to their original position when the pistons inside the caliper retract (after you take your foot off the brake). This causes them to vibrate as you drive and creates the noise.
THE SOLUTION
Brembo is pretty much the default choice for most of the mainstream auto manufacturers. The calipers on my previous Maserati Ghibli, B9 RS5 and the wife's Ranger Rover sport are so similar that I'm convinced that they're the exact same part numbers. None of these manufacturers put shims between the back of the pads and the pistons but Porsche do. On Porsche cars they have inserts that plug into the piston and adhere to the back of the brake pads, so that when the brakes are disengaged, the brake pad is pulled back away from the disc when the pistons retract. The distances are miniscule but it stops the bad from vibrating against the disc.
The inserts look like this, with the claw-like centre part plugging into the caliper.
SOURCING THE PARTS
I originally placed and order with an online Porsche specialist but after waiting a month for them to get back into stock, I googled the part reference numbers and to my surprise Euro Car Parts sell them. Interestingly though, they're just about impossible to find on their site and I resorted to swapping the last two digits of their part numbers to find the different sizes needed.
If you're reading this and looking for these, here's what's required for the F90 M5 and for the F8X M3 / M4 calipers. Each caliper has 3 differently sized pairs of pistons. So six in each. You need three pairs of different sized inserts to match.
| Euro Car Parts Part Number | Description | Quantity | Total Price |
| 101339020 | H-Tech Caliper Slider KitB.PAD DAMPENING DISC 36mm | 4 | £33.48 |
| 101339040 | H-Tech Dampening Disc/PlateB.PAD DAMPENING DISC 30mm | 4 | £41.52 |
| 101339060 | OE Quality Dampening Disc/PlateB.PAD DAMPENING DISC 34mm | 4 | £23.04 |
Need other sizes? - The weird thing about Euro Car Parts website is that when you bring up the product page for any of these, it doesn't list the size. The only place that I could see the size of them is when they appear in the "Your Recently Viewed Items" section at the bottom of the page. So if you've gone to the trouble of measuring the inner diameter of the pistons in your caliper and need different sizes than those listed above, do what I did and do searches on the part number above but change the last two digits. I found that changing 20 to 25, 35, 55 etc brought up different variations, but in order to see the size of each you need to then click on something else so that it appears in the aforementioned section of the website to see what the size is.
INSTALLATION
This is for the F90 M5 but I'd imagine most other BMW (Brembo) floating calipers are the same.
- Pop the bonnet and remove loosen off the brake fluid reservoir.
- Jack up the car and remove the wheel as usual.
- Hammer our the pad locating pins in the side of the caliper using a caliper pin punch.
- The caliper is held on by two nuts, one at the top and one at the bottom that are on the inner side (closest to the engine) and face the rear of of the car. Can't remember the socket size but just remove these.
- You'll want to pull out the brake line from any brackets around the wheel hub to give you the necessary slack to remove the caliper.
- I then used an upturned bucket sat next to the disc to rest the caliper on.
- Pull out the pads and push the inserts into the pistons.
- It's a could idea to put a coating of caliper grease on the edges of the pads and the pad spring brackets at the same time.
- Peel the packing off of the piston inserts and then carefully place each pad back into the caliper but don;t press against the inserts yet.
- Now you'll want to put the locating pins back in before refitting the caliper before remounting it to the hub assembly. If you do this after you've reiftted the caliper, you'll have difficulty pulling them back towards the spring clip on the rear of the caliper and you'll smear the adhesive between the insert and the back of the pad.
- Reassemble in reverse order. Remember to tighten the brake fluid reservoir cap.
- Go for a drive.
Firstly, your brakes will still make noise from time to time. I'm still getting a wee bit of noise when coming slowly into my drive when doing a hard-lock on the steering wheel, but the overall noise is reduced by about 90%!
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