Was dead set against ceramic pads for years... now I'm eating my words

I used to swear by semi-metallic pads because I thought ceramics were too soft and didn't bite hard enough. Took my 2014 F-150 out to the mountains near Asheville last October and the semi-metallics started fading bad after 3 hard stops. Swapped to a set of ceramics at 60k miles and the difference in dust alone is crazy. No more orange wheels after a week of driving. Has anyone else here made the switch and felt like they were wrong about something for too long?

2 comments

2 Comments

harper_smith19h ago

Bought into the whole 'ceramics are for grandmas' thing for way too long myself. Ran semi-metallics on my old Tacoma and thought I was hot stuff until I nearly cooked them coming down a steep grade near Boone. Swapped to ceramics and honestly felt like a dummy for all those years of scrubbing baked-on dust off my wheels every weekend. Your experience with the dust alone is spot on, that's a game changer nobody warns you about until you see how clean your truck stays. Ford trucks especially seem to love ceramics too, they bite better cold than people give them credit for. Take this with a grain of salt but I'd bet you'll never go back to semi-metallics unless you're towing a house uphill daily.

jason_kelly818h ago

Boone grades will humble you real quick, that's no joke. Did you notice any difference in pedal feel after the swap or was it pretty much the same once they bedded in? I ran ceramics on an old F150 and the pedal was slightly softer at first but once they warmed up they grabbed way harder than I expected. Got me wondering if the Tacoma brakes just run hotter naturally or if it's more about how you drive.