Ceramic Brake Pads?

I'll be needing to replace the brake pads on my `02 Taurus soon and I'd like to get whatever came original on the vehicle. The stock pads produce almost no dust, they don't squeak, they stop great and they have nearly 90,000 miles on them. Do you think the original pads are ceramic? I've heard from some sources that ceramic pads will wear the rotors down faster than other types of pads. Can anyone here back that up?

Sounds like ceramic pads. I would doubt that ceramic pads would come stock on a Taurus though. I'd suspect more a semi-metallic. Ceramic pads are not really low dust, it's mostly that the dust they do produce is lighter in color and therefore gives the appearance of less dust.

I don't think the ceramic pads would wear the rotors faster. I have ceramic pads on all three vehicles, including an SUV and don't notice increased rotor wear. The improved braking would imply a softer pad compound, and that softer compound to me would lead me to suspect less wear on the rotors. I should also add that I doubt I'll get 90k miles out of any of the ceramic brakes I've used.

-Rod

You may want to visit this (http://www.aa1car.com/library/ceramic.htm) article, it seems to address a few of your concerns.

And according to this (http://www.aa1car.com/library/2003/bf30322.htm) article, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to believe your Taurus may have come with ceramics OEM.

-Rod

I put ceramic pads on 2 vehicles, 2000 Cad DTS and 2002 Montana. Replaced rotors at the same time. Rotors wore out on both vehicles in less than a year ( front and rear on the Caddy ). Standard rotors will not hold up under the ceramic pads. The pads act like polishing pads and the glass dust is just like grinding compound. Need high performance rotors. ( The pads showed almost no wear !!! ) I threw the ceramics away and went back to semi-metallic.

I have ran ceramic pads on my cars with no problems and longevity has never been an issue.

Mike
:dunno: