| Has anyone noticed their Hawk HPS braking performance tapering off over time? I’ve only got maybe 7-8K miles on them over the course of 3 years or so. I bedded them in properly on new disks per Hawk’s instructions, and initially they were great. Nice initial bite, and shorter, more confident stops. However, I’ve noticed that now when I “need” the brakes, they aren’t all there. Yesterday I was passing a semi and he decided to move over into my lane while I was next to him. I stood on the brakes, but didn’t slow down anywhere as quickly as I should have. I think the issue may be that I don’t use my brakes much in normal driving. I prefer to double-clutch downshift with a throttle blip for a seamless transition to the next lower gear and scrub off speed via engine braking. This also always leaves me in the proper gear if I need to accelerate to get myself out of a situation, rather than having braking as my only option. I really only use the brakes to scrub off the last 10-15 mph if I find myself actually having to come to a stop. I’m guessing that I don’t have a transfer layer of brake pad material on my disks anymore, so the coefficient of friction is lower than it “should” be. Any thoughts on how to remedy this? If all you can come up with is “use your brakes instead of downshifting”, please don’t waste my time. Perhaps some of you have had this happen before and found that all it takes is a good 60-10 mph braking every week or so to keep performance up, etc? Yes, I have contacted Hawk about this, and I’m waiting for a reply, but I don’t hold much hope for any real response from them. Thanks,
Mike --------------------------------------------------------
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